Friends & Forever Read Free

as he nonchalantly toyed with the second rubber
band.
    Before Carmine could respond, Nicholas chimed
in. "I'm sorry, Doc, but nothing about your kid is really normal ."
    Vincent turned to Nicholas, eyeing him
peculiarly before shining the flashlight in his eyes, too. He said nothing,
glancing between the two of them suspiciously.
    Alcohol thins the blood. Carmine knew it.
Hell, every one of them in the exam room knew it. There was certainly a reason
his head wound was bleeding a lot.
    "So, uh, you gonna fix us up?"
Nicholas asked finally. "Or are you gonna, well… you know… just look at
us?"
    Vincent continued to just look at them for
a moment before letting out an exasperated sigh. "I don't know what I'm
gonna do about you boys."
    "Fix us up," Nicholas said
again, laughing. "I think I broke my ankle and Carmine, well… he looks
like he stuck his head in a blender, but that's nothing new. He's always been
an ugly bastard."
    "Fuck you," Carmine said,
shooting the other rubber band at Nicholas, this time hitting him straight in
the face.
    "All right, enough," Vincent
said, shaking his head as he set down the charts he had been carrying. He
pulled up a stool and checked Nicholas's ankle. "Just a mild sprain, I'd
say. Stay off of it and you should be fine."
    "Thanks, Doc."
    Vincent stood back up, nodding in
acknowledgement, and turned back to his son. "You, on the other hand, are
going to need stitches. Right on the eyebrow, too. That's going to leave an ugly scar."
    "Nice."
    Vincent said nothing else as he walked
out. It was only a minute later when he returned, a nurse in tow. Vincent went
to work stitching up Carmine's eyebrow while the nurse wrapped Nicholas's
ankle. Carmine watched her as she worked, purposely avoiding his father's
intense glare.
    Jenn was her name. Carmine knew her well,
considering his father was screwing around with her.
    It was ridiculous, Carmine knew, but he
couldn't help the bitterness he felt at that fact, the sense of betrayal that
stirred up inside of him at the thought of his father being intimate with anyone .
It wasn't right. All these years later and he still felt like his father even looking at another woman was a disloyalty to his mother, like he was cheating on her,
shamefully pissing on her memory.
    And for a
girl like Jenn? A girl who spread her legs for half the
town?
    Yeah, Carmine was bitter .
    Jenn left a moment later and Vincent
stepped back, surveying his handiwork, before snatching discharge papers from
the charts. Carmine hopped down off the bed, side-stepping his father, but
Vincent caught his arm before he could leave. "Which one of you is
driving?"
    Carmine yanked his arm away. "Me."
    "How much have you had to
drink?"
    Carmine rolled his eyes, handing his
discharge paper to Nicholas before dramatically, theatrically, extending his
arms straight out and tipping his head back. Without any hesitation, he swiftly
touched his nose with his fingertips.
    "You don't have to be a smart ass,
son. It's just a question... a valid one, at that."
    Carmine threw his lollipop away. "I'm
not drunk."
    Vincent didn't appear convinced, but he
didn't stop them from walking out. The two strolled back through the ER, past
the crowd still waiting to be seen. Jenn stood at the check-in desk, chatting
with another nurse, and waved at them as they passed.
    "She's kinda hot, huh?" Nicholas
said, eyeing her. "Doc could do worse."
    Carmine shuddered. "That's my father
you're talking about."
    "So? Come on, DeMarco. You can't
really blame the man. You can't tell me you wouldn't hit that if you
could."
    "I could hit it," Carmine said,
"but I wouldn't."
    "Yeah, right."
    "I'm serious. You think you could do
it? Then do it. Fuck, I dare you to do it."
    Nicholas's expression turned serious. He
didn't balk at a challenge. "You're on."

 
    * * *

 
    "Going into halftime, the score is
tied, fourteen to fourteen."
    "You think we're gonna win?"
Nicholas asked, slouching back and propping himself up on his elbows