I poked my head into the bathroom, more than a little confused. It was 4 a.m. so who could be in there? And with the door open? It was Jake, doubled over the toilet.
". . . . are you okay?"
"No!" he snapped. "What does it look like?!" He glared at me.
"Okay, okay," I said quickly, backing up a little as he retched into the toilet. "You don't need, like, medicine or something . . .?"
"No . . . piss off."
I left quickly, and wandered around in the dark until I found Jay's room. I poked my head through the doorway, "Jay...?" Nothing. A little uncertainly, I tiptoed inside and poked her shoulder. "Jay."
"Mrrmph...." she mumbled turning over. "What?"
"Um . . .," I hesitated. "I think Jake's throwing up. Shouldn't we get medicine or something?"
"We don't have any?"
"Uh, I don't think so . . . ?"
"Fine." she snapped, and felt around on the nightstand. She threw a pair of keys at me. "Get Luke to take you or something." She turned away from me again, going back to sleep. I sighed. Tiptoeing again, I walked downstairs to find Luke's room.
He was, obviously, asleep. I stuck my head around the door again, watching him. "Luke?" Nothing. I tried again louder, "Luke??"
He sat up blinking, "Huh? Dan?"
I tossed the keys at him. "Jay says you have to take me to go grab medicine."
He frowned, confused. "You're sick?"
"No, Jake is."
He was still confused, "He wants medicine?"
"Well, no. . ."
"Then why . . .? Never mind. But we can't use these keys." He tossed them back, smiling easily.
"Why--?"
"Because we can't take Jay's car."
"But--."
"It won't be any fun," he explained, still grinning. He pulled on a shirt and pants. "We're going to take Ichiko's car."
"Again?"
"Yeah. Why not?"
"Because he'll kill you?" I asked dubiously.
"Nah." He walked past me, taking Jay's keys. "He didn't last time."
"He didn't even know you did it last time," I protested, but he'd already gone back upstairs.
I followed him uncertainly. He was tiptoeing around in Ichiko's room, looking for the keys. "Are you sure....," I started to whisper, but he waved at me frantically and I shut up. We both stared at Ichiko, but he didn't move. Luke glared at me then, and mouthed at me to shut up. He finally found the keys on the dresser without waking up Ichiko, and I'd finally started to relax a little, but then . . . He dropped them. He scooped them up quickly and ran from the room, dragging me behind him and down the stairs by my elbow. I stumbled after him, and then we were outside.
Luke dragged me into the car and started the engine, but before we could leave, I caught Ichiko yelling at us from the window. Luke pulled the steering wheel over hard, tearing out of the driveway.
"Great idea!" I told him, annoyed, once we were on the way.
Luke slowed down a little as we got farther away, and glanced over at me briefly. He was grinning! "C'mon," he protested, turning back to the road. "You can't say you didn't have fun!"
