A/N: ENJOY

Chapter 4- An unwanted guest.

I had repeatedly read the same sentence seven times already and it still wasn't any closer to making sense to me. This was useless, trying to study when I had other things on my mind. Timmy had been at the station for over two hours now, and Dad had already been called down. He'd been called while he was at work so I had no way of telling just how angry he was.

I really hoped they'd let him off with a warning because to be completely honest it hadn't been his fault. The down side was that this hadn't been the first time Timmy had been taken into the Police station for fighting with Ben, making the matter even worse. My Dad had always been one of those people who always stuck to his word. So you can probably understand why my hope was low of my Dad letting Timmy play basketball tomorrow night.

Without Timmy the fate of tomorrow's game wasn't looking good. It wasn't that the other players weren't good, because they were, and if it were any other match they would have won . But this was Compton and it was going to be a close call as it was.

Somewhere between reading the sentence again and taking a break to waste time by sharpening my pencils, I decided getting a drink would be a good way to pass the time. I slowly packed away my school books whilst thinking of ways I could convince my Dad to let this one go.

"Jooooliet !" my Mother practically shrieked . I looked up at the sound of my name to see my mother standing in my doorway. She was giggling like a little school girl.

Finally she said in an unnaturally high pitched voice, "There's a visitor for you downstairs." Starting to get up I began to wonder who it could be, since I wasn't expecting anyone.

I made my way slowly down the glass spiral staircase pausing at the curve to see the visitor.

Oh for god's sake. This was the last thing I needed right now.

Paul was standing in the hallway looking at his reflection in the mirror. I stomped down the stairs, loudly sighing.

"What are you doing here!" I demanded, taking no action to disguise my frustration.

Paul turned sharply, startles by my tone. My mother walked up behind me with a frown on her face, which was hard to do considering the amount of Botox that woman had been through.

"Juliet, that is no way to talk to guests." She said sweetly turning her attention to Paul, who was standing there with his cheesy smile, obviously affecting my Mother.

"Maybe he would like some fresh lemonade in this heat. I think Ada mentioned something…." She said absentmindedly, waltzing into the kitchen as if she owned it. Well, technically she did, but that was beside the point.

I plastered a fake smile on my face. "Why of course Paul would you like any refreshments?" over doing the sarcasm just a little. I heard a loud cough from the kitchen, but Paul seemed unfazed.

"Oh that would be lovely Jules, thank you." Either I was right and he seemed unfazed or he was just playing along. He knew I hated it when he called me Jules.

We both strolled into the kitchen to find my mother making strange squealing sounds and starting to look around the kitchen for clues as to where the lemonade might be. This was obviously for show because my mother has never done anything domestic for most of my life. That was usually the department of Ada our cook and general housekeeper. She had been with our family ever since I was young, and she was practically a second mother to me. There were even situations where I would go to her before my own Mother.

My Mother carried on clattering. She probably didn't even know where the glasses were. Whenever people came round she liked to give the impression that she was the perfect housewife. You know the kind that stays home and bakes cookies, when in reality she spent most her time in the spa or country club and her way of making dinner was instructing Ada on what to make.

"Try the fridge." I suggested. She walked over to the fridge, muttering about how she knew and she was just looking for something else.

After she handed out our glasses and dragged everyone out to the garden, no doubt hoping Paul would report back to his parents about our new ridiculously expensive deck table.

"It was so lovely for you to drop in Paul" Mother told him. Lovely. Yeah right.

"It was so lovely to see you again, Mrs Capulet." He said whilst staring at her. He was still looking at her. She consciously smoothed down her hair.

"What?" she asked him, trying to figure out whether she had a wardrobe malfunction?

"Oh I'm so sorry for staring, but I just can't believe you are Jules' mother, you look more like her sister!" my mother blushed and started giggling again. You have got to be kidding! How much more fake can you get. I don't know how much more of this I could take.

"Actually , I did have a reason for coming over. My life has changed so much over the last few weeks, and it is all because of Jules."

I choked on my drink. "eh…." I said my mouth hanging open .

He continued. "I would be honoured if you would go with me to the masquerade ball, will you?"

And there it was. The ulterior motive. That complete prat! He planned all of this! He knew I couldn't say no in front of my Mother. He glared at me, daring me to object.

Mother gushed. "Aw, that's so sweet, and ever so kind, Juliet would love to go with you."

"Peachy. This is just so damn peachy." I muttered under my breath, inaudible to anyone's ears but mine.

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