“Okay, little stepbrother,” I say. “Time to go home.”
He coughs and says, “Screw you, I'm not your stepbrother.”
Well. I guess not then.
“Get up, come on. I'll get us a ride.” Even if I did feel comfortable driving a car I've never tried in a town I don't know in a journey that begins with navigating out of a sea of parked cars, I don't know where we are or how to get home, and I don't think Lucas is in any state for navigating. I could text my mom and get directions, but she likes to go to bed early and she and Dominic are probably already tucked away in domestic bliss, and I don't want to bother them unless I have to. “Do you have any friends who can get us a ride?” I ask Lucas, but I'm not surprised when he only gives me a one-shoulder shrug, because I haven't seen him look settled with anyone this whole night. I'm hit with a pang of feeling sorry for the kid; here he is sick on the floor at a party where even the girl he brought with him has been deriding him the entire time. Plus now that he's lost the baseball cap in his rush to reach the toilet, he looks a lot more human. “It's okay,” I say. I put my hand under his elbow and help him stand up and rinse out his mouth. “I'll find us something.”
“Screw you,” he says, “I'm not little.”
“Okay. Drink some water, c'mon.”
I help him out of the bathroom and deposit him on the couch, which is easier now that people are starting to leave and more than one of the more enthusiastic couples have slinked off upstairs, which is how Aanya's parties always wind down too. We've changed very questionable sheets mornings after her parties, even though we've put up literal barricades to try to stop people from going up the stairs. It never works. People get really excited about having sex outside their houses.
I'm looking for Josey, because who else am I going to look for, but she's not at her post in the kitchen. Maybe she left. There's one other person I can ask, so I suck it up and walk up to Weird Theo, how's alone and contemplating his watch.
“Hi,” I say.
He looks up. “Hey, Taylor New Girl.”
“It's Taylor Cipriano, actually.”
“But that's Spanish for 'new girl,' right?”
“Oh, totally.”
“So we're good then.”
“Did you drive here?”
“I did, if you can call what I do in my crappy car driving. It's kind of more praying and constant braking.” He smiles at me. “Do you need a ride?”
“I really really do. For me and my drunk kind-of-stepbrother, who may or may not throw up in your crappy car.” I hold up a finger. “Remember, you stained my sweatshirt.”
“That's true, I owe you. Where do you live?”
“It's...” I close my eyes and try to remember the address on the packing labels I stuck on five million boxes. Come on, Taylor. “Spring...borough Road? I have no idea the number.”
“You don't know your address?”
“New kid, remember?”
“Right, right. Cipriano. Okay, I know where that is, we can drive around. I have to wait for Josey, though. She came with friends but I'm bringing her back.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Ha, thank me after you see my car.”
Josey comes in from the back porch a few minutes later, smiling and smelling like cigarette smoke. “I'm ready,” she says to Theo, and then looks at me. “Is Taylor coming?”
“Yeah,we're dropping her off on Springborough Road.”
“Just right there on the street?” she asks.
“Right smack dab,” Theo says.
“Well, it's a nice neighborhood.”
“And we have to figure out how to get this guy in our backseat,” Theo says.
“This guy. Why don't you know anybody? That's Lucas Darrow, he was the freshman in your pre-Calc class last year, his mom is that, uh, firecracker on the PTA, he plays lacrosse...?”
“There were a lot of freshman in my math class,” he says, then says to me, “I'm really bad at math.”
“I forgive you.”
“Thank you, Cipriano.”
Josey's over by the couch hauling Lucas up by his armpit. “Okay, kiddo, c'mon. Theeere we go.”
“I don't need help,” he complains, but he's leaning on her pretty heavily. And he must be pretty out of it if he's complaining about being held up by a girl who looks like her.
It's a bit of a hike to Theo's car, so all three of us take turns wrapping an arm around Lucas's waist and dragging him along. I was a little worried we'd have to take him by the ER, but I'm pretty sure he's going to be okay. He gets into the backseat and immediately falls asleep. I don't know where he lives, so I guess he's coming back with me. I'll take responsibility for explaining that to Dominic and by proxy his stepmom, since Lucas is going to have enough to worry about what with getting his car back and coming home roaring drunk two days before school starts. And I can't really not worry about that, is the thing, because if he gets in trouble for hanging out with me, that's going to cause an issue between Dominic and his ex-wife—who is apparently a firecracker—and that would probably cause an issue between Dominic and my mom. Don't get me wrong, I'm still thinking this new family thing is a damn fairy tale, but it's already harder than I'd expected.
I start to get in the backseat with Lucas, but Josey says, “Uh-uh, you get shotgun.”
“Are you sure?”
“You're the guest. Guests ride shotgun.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I don't know what her relationship with Theo is. They definitely seem like they've known each other for a while,
