Free Unzipped by Lois Greiman

garage, where I turned off the engine and waited for him to be jolted into awareness. It only took a moment.
    “Whir im I?” he grumbled, his head doing asymmetrical circles on his wobbly neck.
    “Time to get out.”
    “I don’t feel great.”
    “Really?” I said and hardly even grinned.
    “Think I might be sick.”
    Panic struck. “Not in the Porsche,” I rasped. The car and I had bonded. Lunging outside, I sprinted around the sleek grille, hauled open the passenger door, and yanked him out, but apparently the jerky movement didn’t do much to settle his stomach, because in a moment he was ralphing into the azaleas.
    I turned my back and tried not to follow suit. Finally Solberg moaned. I heard him flop down on the walkway beside the shrubbery and chanced a glance in his direction. “Maybe I shouldn’t a had them shots before I picked you up.”
    I believe it’s generally accepted that geniuses are the stupidest people on earth. “Come on. Let’s get you inside,” I said, trying to keep my eyes averted from the azaleas, but he had already slipped over onto his side.
    I stared at him a moment, cursed in silence, and glanced around. It was a good neighborhood and a nice warm night. He’d probably be fine right where he was, I told myself. But my brother Pete had once passed out in my mother’s peonies. I had spotted him beside the shrine of the Virgin Mary when I’d peeked out to see if anyone was necking in the backyard and I’d thought it an okay place for him to spend the night.
    Mom had emphatically disagreed, and my bottom still remembered the lesson. In the McMullen clan, it’s acceptable to drink yourself into oblivion but criminal to leave your brother facedown for the neighbors to gossip over in the morning. The irony didn’t elude me then or now, and yet I still felt a need to haul the ragged-assed little geek to his feet.
    “Come on,” I said, dragging him along with an arm around his waist. “Wake up. I need your security code.”
    He just managed to mumble the numbers before his head slumped against my breast. I considered dropping him onto the concrete to make sure it wasn’t intentional, but he seemed to be staring into the interior of his cranium, so I let it pass and pushed the door open with my foot. A chrome-and-crystal chandelier blazed in the gargantuan foyer. The house ran off in monochromatic sterility in every direction, not a couch or a blanket in sight.
    “Where’s your bedroom?” I asked.
    He didn’t answer. I gave him a little jiggle.
    “Bedroom,” I repeated. The word seemed to bump a few frazzled neurons together.
    “Up,” he croaked, and I stared up the mountainous steps and began to climb. By the time I’d reached the top I was breathless despite Solberg’s minuscule weight and my own extraordinary fitness.
    As I shuffled him down the hall, I noticed that only one of his feet was paddling. The other dragged behind him like a dead duck. I shoved open the bedroom door and tossed him onto the mattress.
    Unfortunately, he dragged me with him, and with a drunk’s unerring accuracy, landed with his hand on my right boob.
    “Babe,” he mumbled, squeezing.
    My breath came back in a rush. I shot to my feet, and it could be I kicked him in the shin, but I’d hauled his bony ass all the way upstairs without so much as a word of thanks.
    Grumbling to myself, I found a phone on his glass bedstead and picked up the receiver, intending to call a cab, but from that vantage point I could see his Porsche far below. It gleamed cobalt blue in the overhead lights, looking sexy and ultraelegant. But didn’t it look a little lonely, too? Forsaken? Maybe I should take it home. Of course, if I did, Solberg would eventually show up to retrieve it, which meant another encounter of the weirdest kind.
    On the other hand, I mused, if I had possession of his car, he could probably be convinced to do more investigating, despite the fact that I hadn’t exactly lived up to his fantasies