Page 84 of Push & Pull

“Hey!” Samson shouted. “What are you mumbling about over there?”

Petra jerked up onto her feet. “Girl stuff! You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, yeah? I’ve got a wife.”

“Like I said. You wouldn’t understand.”

All of this was too difficult for Simone to follow as her stomach growled and her anxiety spiraled her back into unconsciousness. She didn’t fall asleep, though. Every few minutes Petra’s movements, or her arguments with the men she knew, woke Simone back up. When talk of “drastic measures to make them pay” came up again, Petra employed deflection techniques that didn’t work. If her goal was to make Simone feel well enough to sleep, it wasn’t effective.

More stuff for me to worry about.

Simone didn’t know what time it was when Petra lightly patted her cheek and brought her back to the cold, ruthless world.

“Hey… follow my lead, okay?”

Before Simone knew what was happening, let alone who she was, Petra walked up to Samson and poked him on the shoulder.

“She needs to pee,” Petra declared. “God knows what else, too.”

“So?”

“So?You’ve gotta have a toilet around here somewhere. I’ve seen you and Georgio disappear for a few minutes at a time after downing your energy drinks. Where you guys draining your lizards?”

“If you need to go, that’s fine. The toilet is over there.” Simone didn’t see where he pointed. “She’s not leaving that cot, though, even with a chaperone.”

“Hm. Be right back. Don’t fuck with her while I’m gone. I’ll know if you have.”

“Why do you care? You two got cozier than we thought on your road trip?”

“As you said, we girls look out for each other.” Petra’s footsteps echoed across the parking garage.

She was back a few minutes later.

“Sit up.” She tugged on Simone’s hand until getting up was inevitable. “Do you need to go to the bathroom? I’ve been watching the way you hold your stomach over here.” For some reason, that was louder.

“Would you come off it?” Samson said. “Let her piss herself for all I care.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m sure you wouldn’t bitch about having to smell a piss-soaked heiress. Woman hasn’t had anything to drink in twelve hours? It’s gonna beripe,dude. Pure yellow.”

“Pee’s supposed to be yellow.”

Petra slapped her hand on top of her head and groaned. “It would be super easy to take her to the bathroom. I can do it. Come on. Let the woman have some dignity before you do whatever Uncle Michail told you to do to her later.”

“You think I wanna do that?”

“I think you’ll do whatever because he’s promised you a fat cut of that ten million.”

“You’ve been cut out of it, if you haven’t noticed.”

“So my uncle, dad, whatever’s an asshole. You’re saying it like it’s news to me.” Petra pulled Simone by her arm. “I’m taking her to the bathroom.”

Samson slammed his ass into a folding chair and pulled out his phone. “Be quick about it. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

Petra jerked her head toward a door that Simone could barely see through her half-opened eyes. “Let’s go. I’ll be damned if I sit around while you pee yourself. Doubt you want to deal with that, either.”

Simone didn’t have much choice – or much strength as she soon found out.Guess it doesn’t really matter if I have to go or not.As was the norm for the past twelve hours, choices were made for her. From Astrid deciding Simone wasn’t ready to return to management…

Now, whatever all of this shit was.