Chapter Eighteen #2
“No,” Christian said, looking Danny right in his eye.
“You’re a bad friend, Danny. Do you even realize how much time I’ve spent trying to make you feel included?
Trying to make you feel like you’re not just some guy who doesn’t know anything?
Everything you know about this city, every friend you have, is because of me.
The least you could do is respect me enough to treat me like I’m not fucking stupid. ”
Danny could feel the floor shaking, like Christian was an express train rumbling past him.
“But I know what you’re doing, Danny,” Christian said. “Why you’re closing me out of your life—why you close everyone out of your life.”
Christian dropped his voice low. “And I think you know, too.”
Danny felt like he was back at St. Pete’s, approaching his locker to find that someone had scribbled a slur on it in permanent marker.
Like he was at the kids’ table on Christmas Eve, his cousins asking him in between courses of the Seven Fishes dinner to “look at his nails” and then bursting into laughter when he looked at them the wrong way.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Danny said defensively, feeling the hot blood rush from his chest into his hands.
“Please,” Christian whispered. “Come on, Danny. Don’t make me say it.”
“No,” Danny said, straightening his back, his voice becoming deeper and harsher. “Say it. Say what you think. Since you’re so smart—why don’t you tell me?”
For one blistering second, Christian looked like he was considering saying what they both knew, deep down, he was thinking, and what they both knew, even deeper down, was true.
Christian walked back from the abyss with a quiet scoff. “Fuck this. I’m outta here,” he said, sucking his cheeks. He snatched his jean jacket off the back of a chair, punching his arms through the sleeves and yanking it over his shoulders.
“I hope you figure out who you are, Danny. I really do. Because who you are right now is shit.”
Danny watched as Christian stomped out of the kitchen and back out the front door of the apartment, no one turning to notice, no one calling for him to come back.
The hot liquid simmered beneath Danny’s skin.
What the hell does he know, he told himself. He didn’t even see the way I kissed Nina just minutes ago.
Like an actress picking up her cue line, Nina piped up from behind Danny.
“Wait, was that just Christian?” Nina asked. “Where did he go?”
Danny turned around to find Nina holding a stack of empty cups in one hand and a bundle of paper towels soaked in an orange liquid in the other, clearly the result of a drink getting knocked over.
“Oh,” Danny gulped as Nina scooted by him, dropping the paper towel ball into the chrome garbage can. “He had to leave.”
“What?” said Nina. “But he just got here!”
“Yeah,” Danny said, wiping his sweaty palms against the front of his jeans. “He forgot he had something to do.”
“Ugh,” Nina groaned. “La-ame.”
Danny saw the choice dangling in front of him, held out like a baton in a gym class relay.
He could catch up with his friend, tell him that he was right, do the hard thing, the uncomfortable thing, the thing that would rescue them both.
But like his father and his father’s father and every Victorio man who had ever been given a choice, Danny reached for something easier.
“Wanna do shots?”
“Whoa,” Nina said with a laugh. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Danny said, grabbing two cups from the stack in Nina’s hand and smacking them down on the kitchen island.
He walked across the room to the stack of liquor bottles posed on the counter.
He grabbed the tallest one by its neck and carried it back to Nina.
The clear liquid glugged into the bottom of the cups.
Danny handed one to his friend, kissing their plastic rims together before bringing it to their lips.
“Salute!” he announced in his grandfather’s voice.
Danny shot it back, the liquid burning his throat on the way down, warming his chest and making him forget the sight of the boy exiting stage left.
“Let’s do another,” Danny barked almost immediately.
Nina let out a surprised chuckle. “Wait, you’re serious? We just had one.”
“Yeah,” Danny sneered condescendingly. “I thought this was supposed to be a party.”
“Ha,” Nina sort of laughed to herself. “Yeah, okay, I guess.”
Danny poured another two shots, did another cheers with Nina, then threw it back, clearing his throat with a grunt as the vodka, not quite as sharp this time, swallowed down his throat.
“Another.”
“What?!” Nina yelped. “No way, dude, I’m good.”
“C’mon,” Danny said, a little forcefully. “One more.”
“Danny…,” Nina said, looking around as if hoping one of her castmates might swoop in and rescue her, saying, All right, big guy, that’s enough for tonight.
“Come on, don’t make me look like an asshole,” Danny said in a tone that he’d intended to be joking but came out as sneering. “Let’s just do one more.”
“Uh,” Nina breathed, looking down at the kitchen floor. “Yeah, I…I guess we could do one more.”
This time Danny didn’t bother clinking cups with Nina.
He just tossed back the shot, surprised at how little he could taste, surprised at how easy it went down, like practice made perfect.
Danny slammed down the cup and looked around the room, at everyone still having fun, not worrying about stupid shit like school the next day, or who was or wasn’t your friend anymore.
“Hey, you know what I want you to do right now?” Danny said, stepping in close to Nina, close enough that he could smell the citrus of her conditioner and the sweet alcoholic sweat smell on her skin.
“What?” she asked in a shaky, but not-not intrigued voice.
“I want you to show me your room.”
“Um,” Nina said, somewhat embarrassed, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Danny,” she whispered again, her cheeks turning somehow even more pink.
“What? You don’t want to?”
“No, it’s just…” Nina brushed a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind a matching pink ear. “Like, everyone is still here.”
“Fuck ’em,” Danny said, shrugging. “It’s your party. You get to do whatever you want.”
“I…,” she trailed off, looking around the apartment, but Danny didn’t give her a chance to answer.
“C’mon,” he said, grabbing her hand, leading her through the tableau of students. As they passed, heads turned, many tossing out ohhhhs and knowing grins as they watched Danny Victorio, Casanova of Staten Island, push open her bedroom door and slam it with a thud.