It’s a gorgeous spring morning, and I’d love nothing more than to take my bike up to Tasha’s, but I’m assuming I’m going to have to drag my brother’s drunk ass home. So, instead, I grab the keys to Pops’s van and fight traffic north.

Forty minutes later Tasha answers her door with a grim little smile. The smile is for me. The grimness is for the state of my miserable brother.

“Dammit.” I can’t help but sigh when I see him. He’s in the exact same position he was in in the picture Tasha sent me so I’m assuming he hasn’t moved at all for the last hour. “He passed out like that?”

“Yeah. He was absolutely blitzed when he showed up at my door.”

“Why’d he come here?”

Any trace of a smile leaves her face now and she looks like she really doesn’t want to tell me. Her lack of response gives me all the answer I need.

“He was hitting you up for money, wasn’t he?”

She gives me a single nod.

Tasha runs a really popular relationship and sex advice podcast and has become something of a minor celebrity over the last few years. She’s definitely our most successful family member, but it’s not like she’s rolling in it or anything.

“Tell me you didn’t give him any.”

“Of course not! Especially not while he was this drunk. If he still needs it when he sobers up then—”

“He doesn’t, Tash. He doesn’t need it. His job pays him more than enough for anything he could possibly need. And if he needs more, that means he pissed his paycheck away or he’s working up some sort of scheme again. Don’t give him any.”

She chews her lip. “I was just wondering if your dad’s care facility was putting some strain on you guys.”

“It’s not putting a strain on Jack.” The words aren’t bitter in my mouth. Just heavy with sadness.

“You’re paying for all of it by yourself?”

I shrug, not wanting to get into it. “Pops is on Jack’s insurance from work. So, as long as Jack keeps his job, then we’ve decided to call it even. We’re all doing our part.”

She looks like she wants to argue with me on that one, but Jack starts stirring and for the next fifteen minutes, he gets all of our attention while we drag him up off the floor.