How are you doing? Still sick?
I’m better now. I just need to sleep.
Let me know how tomorrow goes.
I will.
He doesn’t text back, so I put my phone down and try to sleep. I don’t know how I can after this horrible night. I feel like it’s not even real, like everything that happened between my truck breaking down and now was all just a nightmare. Even those texts just now didn’t seem real. Briggs almost sounded like an actual person, one who cared enough to check on me rather than the monster I know from school.
Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and find it really was all a dream. I hope so, because I really don’t want this to be real.
Chapter 15
Briggs
Parker almost got us into an accident driving me home tonight. Scarlett kept sending him drunk texts, threatening to break up with him if he didn’t respond, so like an idiot, he did, and almost drove us off the damn road. He can usually text and drive just fine, but not when he’s angry, and nobody gets him angrier than Scarlett.
When I finally got home, I snuck in the back door and went straight up to my room. My dad’s probably out drinking with his country club friends, but I didn’t want to risk running into him if he was home.
“What the hell do I do with this?” I ask myself, holding up the shirt I used to cover my hands when I dragged the guy off the road. I notice blood on it and drop it, racing to my bathroom to see if I have any garbage bags. I find some that the maid left under the sink, grab one, and hurry back to the spot where I left the shirt. I pick it up and drop it in the bag.
I don’t remember seeing blood on the guy, but it was dark, and I was trying really hard not to look at him. But I did see his face. He looked older, maybe in his fifties, and his face was scruffy like he hadn’t shaved in a while. If I had to guess, I’d say he was a homeless guy looking for a ride, although it doesn’t make sense he’d be that far out of town. He’d have better luck getting a ride in the city, not on a deserted road.
Going over to my nightstand, I grab the TV remote and turn on the news. I doubt they’d do a story on some guy getting hit. People get hit by cars all the time, and it doesn’t make the news.
“Briggs!” my dad yells, followed by several loud knocks. “Are you in there?”
“Yeah, but I’m going to sleep!” I yell back, stuffing the garbage bag under the bed.
The door opens, reminding me I forgot to lock it.
My dad comes into my room wearing dress pants and a dress shirt, but no tie. “What are you doing home so early on a Saturday night?”
“I didn’t feel like being out so I came home.”
He walks over to me. “What about your girlfriend? She’s not upset you’re not taking her out?”
“We got in a fight. I don’t want to talk about it.”
He rubs his chin. “I’ve been thinking about you and her, and I think it’s time you find someone else. Someone we can trust to behave appropriately at functions. Aubrey is a beautiful girl, but she’s not the type of girl you bring to a work event. We need to find you someone more refined. One of my clients has a daughter who—”
“I don’t need help finding dates, and I didn’t break up with Aubrey. We just had a fight.”
“Still, you need to think about ending things with her. You need to find someone who at least has a brain. Aubrey can’t even engage in intellectual conversation. It’s embarrassing, and looks bad to our clients.”
Now he’s telling me who to date? This is a first, but I’m not putting up with it. I let him control enough of my life, and only because I think it’ll get me what I want, but I’m not letting him tell me who I can date.
“I need to take a shower. Are we done here?”
“What’s on your shoe?” He points to it. “Is that blood?”
I look down and see dried blood on the front of my brown leather shoes. “It’s tomato sauce. We went out to eat and I must’ve spilled some.”
“On your shoe? Weren’t your feet under the table?”
“We got it to go. It probably dripped out of the container.”
Shit. I just changed the story. I’m going to have to tell Parker and Finn to add dinner, at a place that has tomato sauce, and that we took it to go.
