Page 59 of Road Trip

“Aw, come on!” Jacob said. “Seriously?”

“It’s not like either of them can get knocked up!” Luke agreed. “Plus they’re both eighteen!”

“Sleepovers in separate rooms,” Mr. Mercer agreed. “Jacob upstairs and Matt downstairs.”

Have you ever fallen asleep during a film and when you wake up you justknowyou’ve missed a major plot point because nothing makes sense? That was how I felt right now. And so did Jacob and Luke, obviously.

“Matt,” Mrs. Mercer said, “you’re staying with us in the basement. Bring your bags in after dinner and we’ll get you set up.”

Wait, what? I was staying? As instaying?

“Uh, what?”

And then it hit me. I got up and walked out of the room and into the kitchen. Which was rude as fuck, but I didn’t want to cry like a little kid in front of all the Mercers.

When a hand fell on my shoulder, I knew it wasn’t Jacob’s.

“I called your mother,” Mrs. Mercer said softly.

I nodded and stared out the screen door into the back yard. I didn’t trust myself to say anything.

“You’re living with us now.”

“I’m eighteen,” I said, because I always had to argue about everything with everyone. “You can’t make me do anything.”

“Probably not,” she said. “But Jacob can. Come back and finish your meal. We’re having brownies with ice cream for dessert.”

“That’s my favorite,” I said, my voice rasping.

She squeezed my shoulder. “I know.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Luke complained as he dumped a set of clean sheets on the pullout couch in the basement. “I was gonna wait until Jacob had moved to college and then petition Mom and Dad to let me have the basement. It was going to be my epic party space!” He glowered at me and then said, “Dad says we’ll get you a real bed next week.”

Turned out that no matter how hard he tried, Luke was no more capable of being an asswipe than his big brother. I snorted, ignoring the comment about the real bed that had my stomach twisting in new but not necessarily bad ways. “For you to have an epic party space, you’d have to have friends.”

Luke flipped me the bird and bounded up the stairs without answering. It was lucky we actually did get on since I was going to be living with him now. I guessed I was about to find out what having a little brother was like after all.

I sat down on the pullout couch as it hit me all over again.

I was going to be living with the Mercers. I wouldn’t be slinking in the door like a stray dog. I’d been rehomed. Also like a stray dog. Part of me wanted to be mad that nobody had asked me, but that was just my stubborn streak talking. Mostly I was relieved.

Mrs. Mercer had sat me down after dinner for a talk and laid out some ground rules. Because of course there were going to be rules. But it was nothing too onerous: keep my room more or less tidy, take care of my own laundry, and not flunk out of community college.

“But you don’t even like me,” I’d said in a small, pathetic voice.

“Yes, Matt. We think you’re awful. It’s why we’re asking you to stay. We’re masochists like that.”

Turned out Jacob’s mom was as sarcastic as I was. I could work with that.

And when she’d hugged me, it hadn’t been awful. In fact, it had been kind of nice once I got past standing there, as stiff and awkward as the Tin Man inThe Wizard of Oz, and relaxed. Which was a good thing because I got the feeling she was planning on hugging me alot.I could work with that too.

Jacob came bouncing down the stairs and sat next to me on the couch. “You okay?”

I nodded. “It’s just a lot, you know? Going from thinking your folks barely tolerated me to living with them.”

Jacob bumped his shoulder against mine. “Matty, I love you, but you’re prickly as fuck. Like, you’re not exactly easy to get to know, you know? But they’ve always liked you fine. They wereworriedabout you more than anything.”

Warmth flooded through me at the way he casually dropped the wordsI love you.

---