Borrowed Time

Chapter 141

Shelby's birthday could honestly be considered a national holiday in Juliette's book and she wouldn't even bat an eye - that was simply how Shelby deserved to be celebrated. She deserved all the chaos, all the feelings, all the love that came around with national celebration, and Juliette felt that only celebrating Shelby in their friend group was a major disservice to her... But she was vetoed when she'd asked if they should rent a sky banner reading 'Happy 18th birthday, Shelby!' ... Apparently that was too much.

She didn't see it that way, but the 2-6 vote meant that she lost - even though she was in charge of the damn planning committee for the party that they were throwing for her... Tegan was the only one to agree with her, but even that hadn't been enough... it wasn't fair, he should've counted for multiple people... But no. Only one vote per person. Lame.

Shelby had said that she wasn't giving herself a party this year, that she was going to let the day pass without much candor because she wasn't up to planning one... And because Sheila and Ben had asked to not have one in the house after someone had knocked over Shelia's grandfather's ashes the year before... it was a fair request, but Juliette knew that Shelby liked being celebrated by her friends... And she also had access to a massive fucking house, why not use it, right?

What's the point of dating an heiress to a fortune if you don't use their house for a party? That was what Emma had said when they'd floated the idea of hosting the party a few days prior, and Juliette agreed - there were a lot of things that Emma was good for, but no one could deny that the money part was a major fucking perk to knowing and being loved by Emma Walsh. Money could sometimes buy happiness, and in this case that was exactly what it was doing.

It was buying Shelby's happiness... And Juliette was getting to plan it. She'd given Emma and Penny one task, and that was to keep Shelby sufficiently distracted while set up was happening - she'd asked Micheal to help them, but he reminded her that if it was the three of them, she'd know that something was happening, that there was something that she was being distracted from... And he had a good point. Plus having him around for set up meant that she would get to hear about the date that he'd planned to take Shelby on the next day, and Juliette always loved hearing about that part of their relationship, even if she pretended like she'd rather die than listen to it. Seeing both of her friends so dizzily in love with each other was literally beautiful, she wouldn't trade getting to see that for anything in the world.

"Hey..." Juliette nearly jumped out of her skin as she glanced over at Esme, clearing her throat... Honestly, she'd sort of forgotten that she wasn't alone, though she wasn't sure how she would be, considering the fact that were actively in a moving vehicle.

"Hm?" She asked, and Esme reached over, placing a hand on her leg... It was sweet that they did that, that they used their touch to keep her engaged in conversation if they left like she couldn't quite focus in - she found it to be one of the sweetest and most relaxing things in the world.

She placed her hand over theirs, giving it a soft squeeze. God, you're so sweet.

"Did you figure out how to get Shelby away from Em's? I know she spent the night last night." Esme said, and Juliette shrugged... She didn't really ask what they would be doing, that wasn't her business... plus she wasn't entirely sure if she even wanted to know about it... not her business, right?

"Yeah."

"So...?" Esme asked, trailing off at the end, making Juliette sigh... She was pretty sure that it should have been obvious, but she couldn't really fault Esme for wanting more context to ensure that they understood, she would've done the exact same thing.