I don’t want to get close to Ella. I can’t. She’s the person I need to beat to be number one in our class, and if I can’t do it the fair way, I’ll have to force her out of my way, which won’t be easy if I lose control over her.
Chapter 21
Briggs
“I’m going to ask her to hang out,” Parker says. “See what happens.”
“For the last time, she isnotgoing out with you,” I say, hearing the anger in my voice.
“She will if I tell her I want to talk about the accident. Girls love that shit. They love hearing that a guy wants to talk. It makes us sound all sensitive and shit.”
“Ella’s smarter than that. She’ll see right through your bullshit.”
“Why are you trying to talk me out of this? Why do you care?”
“I’m saving you from embarrassing yourself. There’s no way Ella would ever go out with you, not after all we’ve done to her.”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
My phone beeps, and I see another call coming in. “Finn’s calling me. Hold on.” I switch over to the call. “What’s going on?”
“Insurance called. They want to know what happened to the Range Rover and why I didn’t fill out a report.”
“What’d you tell them?”
“My dad told them the story I gave him about hitting the concrete divider in the parking garage, but they didn’t buy it. They said it didn’t fit with the damages they saw in the claim.”
“Why did your dad file a claim? It couldn’t have cost that much to fix. He could’ve just paid for it.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t and now I’ve got the insurance guy wanting answers. He’s calling on Monday to ask me questions and I don’t know what to say.”
I pause a moment to think. “Can you come over tonight?”
“For what?”
“We need to talk about this. We all have to be on the same page in case someone else asks what happened. Can you be here or not?”
“I guess. What about Parker and Ella?”
“I’ll call them. Be here at seven and don’t be late.” I sound just like my father, giving people orders like he does to me. I need to stop doing that, but I have to with Finn, or he won’t show up. I switch the phone back to Parker. “Can you meet at seven?”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“We have to come up with a story to tell the insurance agent. He didn’t believe the parking garage story.”
“What the hell difference does it make how it happened? The car still needed to be fixed.”
“Let’s just meet and figure out a story. My dad’s going to be gone all night so we’ll meet here. I’ll call Ella and let her know. See you tonight.” I end the call and phone Ella.
“Briggs?” she asks, sounding surprised that I’m calling.
“Hey, can you meet tonight?”
“Why? What happened?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here. We’re meeting at my house at seven. Just push the call button on the gate to get in, or I can give you the code.” I text it to her. “I just sent it to you.” I probably shouldn’t have done that. My dad hates it when I give the code out to people, but I’m pretty sure I can trust Ella. I doubt she’d come back later to rob us. She’s probably never stolen anything in her life. I’ve stolen plenty of things, including a yacht, but I was drunk at the time and only took it out for an hour.
“I can be there, but I can’t stay long. I need to study.”
