They Could Care Less

23: Damon's Punishment

Everyone in the team stood waiting for Jackson and Thea when the two of them had gotten out to the garage. When did they get here? Was it after or before my rescue? Thea asked herself as Jackson frowned.

"Why haven't you left yet?" he asked and he sounded irritated as he glanced around at them and massaged his temples. Why is he so annoyed? They waited for him, for heaven's sake!

"We thought that it'd be better if everyone came late together. Enough of that, come on, we need to hurry," Ethan said.

"You shouldn't have waited. You know he's gonna punish us all now," Jackson muttered, Thea quickly elbowed him when everyone turned around to their cars. Jackson shot Thea a questioning look.

"What's done is done, you can't change that, so be thankful for your friends," Thea couldn't help but hiss, and she quickly mumbled an apology after. Jackson didn't seem to hear her apology.

"Wait, who's sober?" Jackson asked, Thea could tell that he was doing his best with focusing his eyes on Ethan.

"Me, Thea and Jamal," Ethan answered and fished out his car keys from his jeans pocket.

"Perfect, five people in each car. The sober one drives. It's enough that we're all going to be in horrific pain later, we don't need dead members too," Jackson uttered in a serious voice, but soon after cracked a smirk.

"I'll throw you off an airplane if you ruin my car," Jackson whispered and placed his car keys to his car in Thea's cold hands.

"W-what?" Thea stumbled on her words as she stared terrified at the car keys.

"You heard me, Thea," he smirked and walked over to Ethan. "Ethan! My brother!" Jackson exclaimed and put an arm around Ethan. Jackson acted as if he was still drunk when he got into the car. Thea looked around and saw the four boys she would be driving with, and they all looked like they could barely stand up on two legs.

"Let's go then, I guess," Thea mumbled and clicked on the unlock button, Jackson's car lit up and beeped once. The four boys got in without waiting.

"Wait, Thea?" Ethan called out behind Thea. Thea turned out with butterflies tickling her stomach.

"Yeah?" she replied and smiled.

"Jackson, do you know how much he's consumed?" he asked curiously and Thea shook her head. Not enough to keep his comments out of the picture at least.

"Enough to act like that at least. I'm glad you're the one driving," Thea smiled and looked up into Ethan's beautiful eyes.

"Be safe on the road, I'll see you there," Ethan smiled and she thought for a second that he might kiss her, but he gave her another smile and turned around. Thea was left with a small pit of disappointment as she got into the car. She prayed a small prayer that not a single scratch would be on the car when Thea was done with it.

Thea stood changed in the female locker room in front of the entrance. They had a plan, they were going to go in at exactly half past seven together and Thea was going to do the explaining to Damon, well, the lying to be more correct. The lies about why they were so late. Thea still couldn't understand how everyone had forgotten practice and the New York City traffic hadn't exactly helped them when they did the best to not break any laws but at the same drive as fast as possible.

Thea glanced over at the clock, two minutes left. She started to practice what she was going to say in her head, because Thea couldn't trust herself. 'Hey coach, let me explain before you start to yell at us. As you've noticed, we're late, but we have a clear reason to why we are late. It was our friend's birthday party and we went to celebrate it with her. We were aware that practice was today at seven, we planned to leave in time so we wouldn't be late. But unfortunately an accident happened and we had to stay longer to help.' Thea repeated in her brain and took deep breaths to calm herself. She hated lying, especially to those who would never do the same to her. She threw another nervous glance at the clock.