She’s still yelling when he pushesendon the phone.
“I’m going to pay for that tomorrow,” he says with a sigh.
“This is why I don’t have a girlfriend,” Finn says. “They think they fucking own you.”
“Can we go now?” I ask, wanting to get home. I’m nervous about what I’m going to tell my dad, but I’d rather be home dealing with his questions than stuck here with these three.
Briggs turns to face us. “Everyone clear on what we’re doing?”
“Who’s gonna clean this thing?” Finn asks.
“Make Ella do it,” Parker says. “She’s the one who puked.”
“Just have the maid do it,” Briggs says. “Pay her extra. You’re not taking it in to be cleaned. It’s staying in the garage until all this is over.”
“No fucking way!” Finn yells. “I’m not waiting weeks to drive this thing!”
“You want to go to prison?” Briggs asks.
Finn mutters something, shaking his head.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Briggs glances at each of us. “We’ll meet tomorrow and figure out what to do next. Our heads will be clearer and we’ll be able to think, and maybe by then we’ll know something about the guy we hit.”
“I have shit to do tomorrow,” Finn says. “I can’t.”
“You will if I fucking tell you to,” Briggs says, glaring at him.
“Who made you the boss?”
“Idid, and it’s going to stay that way because you and Parker always fuck shit up.”
“I don’t fuck shit up!” Parker says, getting angry.
Briggs’ eyes shoot over to Parker. “Emily Stanfield?”
Parker looks away. “Yeah? So? You didn’t like her that much anyway.”
“And when you told Coach I wasn’t really sick when I missed practice?”
“He caught me off guard. I wasn’t prepared.”
“That can’t happen with this. You have to be ready with a story and it has to be the same one we all use. We need to figure out what that is, but for now the story is we were taking a drive, then went to Finn’s house. We don’t need to mention the weed. That’s getting into too much detail. We need to stick to the basics.”
“I don’t think we should leave out the Ella part,” Parker says. “Like you said, the cop saw her with us. If they interview people we know, they’ll get a different story and know we lied.”
Briggs sighs. “Fine, but you only tell this story if you’re forced to. You don’t offer it up.”
“And what’s the story?” Finn asks.
“We went for a drive, found Ella on the road, and gave her a ride back. Then we hung out at Finn’s house.”
“With Ella?” Finn asks.
“Not with Ella,” Briggs says, sounding frustrated. “Why the fuck would we hang out with Ella?”
“We wouldn’t, but you didn’t make it clear.”
Briggs sighs again. “You, Parker, and me came back here to hang out after we dropped Ella off at her house.”
