“Come on,” I say, grabbing my tiny purse. “We can talk about all the fun stuff in the car.” I breeze past the family room where my parents are on the couch watching a movie. “Later, couch potaters!” I call out over my shoulder.
“Not too late!” my father calls out after me.
“Yeah, right,” I say under my breath. Curfews are for slackers. I consider any night I’m in before two in the morning to be a complete fail.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ON THE WAY TO THE club in Teagan’s car, I finally get around to asking her about her life. It should have been the first thing I talked about when she walked in my door thirty minutes ago, but I was too wrapped up in worries about what Mick would think about my outfit to think straight. I’m going to blame him for my messed up priorities.
“So, what happened at the lawyer’s office?” I ask.
“Oh, shit! I forgot to tell you!” She whacks me on the arm. “They loved your stuff! Said it was awesome.”
“Really?” I warm with the compliment. “Seriously?”
“Yes. They wanted to know what firm you worked for.”
“No shit.” My jaw won’t close.
“No shit, I swear.”
“Man, that is so cool,” I say, picturing myself with a trophy or a medal. “I’m the stuff. The shizzle stick. I should be on Oprah. Except she doesn’t have a show anymore, that wench.”
“Yes, you are, and you should. When I told them you didn’t work for a firm yet, they said when you do work for one to let them know. Also they said if you want some side work, they could give it to you and then give you a reference when you go job hunting.”
“Get the fuck out!” I’m so happy I’m not even worried about messing up my lipstick with my huge grin.
“No, I will not!” Teagan’s grinning too. “I told them I taught you everything you know, of course.”
“That goes without saying. What’d they say to that?”
“They asked me about some shit on the spreadsheet you made and I had to confess I had no idea what the hell it was.”
“Nice try, anyway. Props for that. You’ve got big lady balls.”
“Yeah. Speaking of big lady balls, I’m about to kick someone’s lady balls into next year.”
“Your step-mom?”
“Yes. You would not believe the shit she’s pulling.”
“Ohhh, yes I would. Having you kidnapped is pretty high up there on the lady-balls scale.”
“She’s going to get away with it. There’s nothing connecting her to that stuff.”
“That’s bullshit.” I’m instantly pissed. I’m still getting over the idea that I could have lost my friend to those assholes. I’ve never lost anyone I love, and the day I do it’s going to be more than awful. Like Jersey, I don’t take letting go of things I care about well.
“Tell me about it. But …,” she turns onto the main road that will get us to the club, “…the attorney told me that they could probably put together a case that would get me back all those shares that went to my step-mother. It depends on what they can find when they start doing something they called … crap I forgot.”
“Discovery?”
“Yeah. How’d you know that?” She glances at me for a second before putting her eyes back on the road.
“I learned it in my forensic accounting class. It’s where they get access to the company’s records and stuff. Emails and memos and all that.”
“Yeah. So they think based on what was on that thumb drive, that there will be stuff in there that implicates her in getting those shares kind of illegally or something. So if we can do that, then everything reverses. But maybe they won’t even have to go that far. She might settle for just handing my dad’s stuff back to me in exchange for me not suing her sorry ass.”
“Holy doo on a stick. Does that mean you’ll own the company?” Imagining my BFF running a huge corporation would be funny if it weren’t so scary.
Teagan shrugs. “I’m not really sure. I mean, I have no frigging clue how to run a Seven-Eleven, let alone a giant software company. But I could hire people to do that, right?” She looks at me, and for the first time, her expression is unsure.
“Hell, yeah, you could. And you can sit in those board meetings at the head of the table and fly in on a helicopter and shit.” I grin with the idea of it. Damn, I would love to do that. I could just see us, walking in slow motion, the chopper blades making our hair flow around our faces like supermodels in a rock video. I’d definitely need to buy new shoes for that.