Page 1 of Live Love Steal
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Running late - Isobel
Adulting sucked. Well, being able to drink didn’t usually suck. Having a place of your own where no one tells you how to decorate or where the spoons go was awesome.
Paying bills? Definitely didn’t fall on the good side. Neither did going to court for a traffic camera violation that I obviously did not do because on that very date, near that very time, I was at U-Haul picking up supplies to help my younger sister, Audrey, get out of a bullshit situation with a questionable thug. I had the receipts for boxes to prove it. Not that I couldn’t afford to pay forty bucks, it was the principle of the thing. I didn’t do the crime, despite the car looking like mine, and even more bizarrely, the court sent a grainy photo displaying a plate that matched mine. But it wasn’t my car.
My car had a dented bumper, courtesy of the aforementioned little sister who backed it into her boyfriend’s truck. The very same day and time that the false photo was taken. Unfortunately, because we fled a crime of hit and run, we hadn’t reported the accident, which would prove I was somewhere else with my car. Which meant I couldn’t mention that part of my alibi.
So, adulting sucked.
As I stood in line to get through the security gates, I checked the time on my cell phone. The court website warned to arrive at least twenty minutes before the session, but wouldn’t tell me what time I’d be called. Which was a horrible way to run a business. I needed to get back to work to avoid getting dinged for taking another day off. Not only that, but my boss, Jamie, wanted to go over the presentation notes for tomorrow’s pitch.
With me.
Like, I needed to hold his hand or something? I sent the damn PowerPoint five days ago. He waited until seven-thirty last night to email me a vague message that sounded oddly threatening, warning me that if we didn’t go through my proposal together today, on my scheduled day off for this fucking court date, I’d be written up.
I fired back an email at eight, which was three hours after my scheduled shift ended.
It took twenty minutes to rewrite it five times so my “tone” wouldn’t be “insubordinate” and five more minutes to re-read old emails and cite the specific date and time I requested today off. Which he approved exactly three hours later. I had that receipt, too.
But just like he ignored workplace scheduled hours, he ignored his own responsibility of approving my day off. He fired an email right back, claiming he didn’t approve it.
No sooner than I checked the work website, I saw the request status as “unapproved.” Which was bullshit. I had the email that approved it. I knew that my court date absence had been approved. My eyes did not lie.
But there it was, in the system as unapproved. I bet that asshole went in as he read my newest emails and unapproved it. Unfortunately, there was no way to confirm that.
Unless… did I have any friends in IT? Maybe the back-end database kept a record of changes.
I made myself a note on my phone to follow up on that.
“Ma’am? You’re next.”
Shit! I hadn’t realized the line moved. The guy behind me grumbled about cell phones in court. “She shouldn’t have that thing in here. They made me leave mine in the car.”
I glared back at the asshole talking. “I checked, it’s perfectly fine to bring a cell phone in, you just need to power it off before you enter the courtroom.” God, I swear, some people were stuck in the Stone Age.
The little gray bin didn’t hold my work backpack, purse, and coat, so I needed two. But that man behind me grabbed the only empty bin left and then made a show of taking his belt off to place it inside.
A fucking belt.
I stepped to the side to wait for another bin.
Meanwhile, a younger man, probably my age, walked right past us all. He carried nothing, set his cell phone on the conveyor belt beside his wallet, and walked right through the gate.
Damn. I should take notes. That was impressive. He breezed through like he owned the place.
More impressive, because when he turned around to get wand-checked, he had gauges in his ears, and obvious tattoos peeking out of his shirt sleeves and crawling down his hands. He was a pro—in more ways than one. This obviously wasn’t his first courtroom rodeo, despite the sharply pressed suit that he wore. It fit like it was custom-tailored, and his slicked-back hair was somewhere between dirty blond and surfer blond.
He caught me staring.
I quickly glanced down.
Yay! A whole stack of empty bins slid in front of me. I dumped my coat and purse in and stepped back to wait to be motioned through.
Which didn’t happen. The man who jumped my place in line set off the gate.
Instead of motioning for him to stop and get wanded, they waved him past.
