Chapter 18 Boys, Booze, and Car Accidents
EIGHTEEN
BOYS, BOOZE, AND CAR ACCIDENTS
CONNOR
Wifey
Thank you for ordering me Chinese. We’ve been in meetings all day with terrible cafeteria food.
Of course. Got to keep my girl fed.
“Video games and beer. What more could you ask for?” Jamie asked.
“I know what Connor would ask for.” Tom hopped over the back of the couch and picked up the controller I’d tossed after losing yet another match of Smash Bros.
“Oh yeah. He’s in loooove,” Grant sang. He’d been dropping the L word a lot since he arrived, and I wasn’t a fan.
“You’d better stop making fun of him before he kicks us out to run over to Sarah’s.” Tom grinned at me, knowing I hated every minute of this bullshit.
“She’s busy tonight. That’s why we’re here,” Jamie said, and I glared at him, but he just shrugged.
Sometimes I hated the fact that he and Sarah were such good friends.
“What?” He smirked at me, then turned his body to cut me out of their little conversation. “All the sorority officers are in mandatory meetings about rush. The school is instituting new procedures to try to keep the sororities safe.”
“I still can’t believe there’s a serial killer in Kirksville,” Tom said.
Grant huffed. “I really picked the perfect time to move back, huh?”
“Did you really see someone get killed?” Tom asked, a little too eagerly.
“Yeah.”
Tom looked at me expectantly, but there was no way I was about to relive that night for his sick curiosity.
Saving me from having to tell my best friend to shut the hell up, Jamie asked, “With everything going on, you still planning to have a bonfire on the 4th?”
Tom grabbed a handful of chips. “Yeah. I mean, there’s safety in numbers, right?” Casting a sly look my way, he added, “Laura’s going to be there.” When he didn’t get a response mentioning my ex, he added, “Looks like we’ll all be getting reacquainted now that she’s back for good.”
Jamie, Grant, and I sat up a little straighter, and Tom smiled. “She left med school week one but stayed in Chicago until she couldn’t lie to her parents anymore. They’re trying to get her into school here, but she’s not going for it.” He threaded his fingers behind his head and shrugged.
“Sounds like you guys have been keeping in touch.” I was surprised that Tom had info Grant didn’t.
Tom got up to grab another beer—and to build anticipation for whatever he was about to say. With his head in the fridge, he mumbled something, but none of us caught it. He set a couple of beers on the counter and started looking through our snacks.
“What was that?” Jamie craned his neck back, trying to make eye contact with a dodgy Tom.
“I said—” He rustled a chip bag. “Kimmy told me.”
Grant and I doubled over laughing.
“What?” Tom asked, way less entertained than he was when he was raking me over the coals.
“You’re ridiculous.” Grant tossed me an abandoned controller, and we started another match.
“I couldn’t turn her down,” Tom whined.
“You absolutely could’ve,” Grant laughed, knocking me clean off the stage within the first thirty seconds.
Tom walked in front of the TV, and we swerved to see the action. Too bad I was trash at video games and lost yet another life. “Fucker.”
He plopped down next to me on the couch. “Whatever. Kimmy’s not so bad when she’s not around Laura.”
“Too bad they’re always together. And that’s game!” Grant hopped up and danced.
“It’s not really an accomplishment to beat Connor,” Jamie chimed in. “I’ve been beating him at Smash Bros. since I was like eight. Dude has no game.”
I shrugged. “You’re not wrong.” I glanced at Tom as he shoved pizza in his mouth. “So, she’s back for good?”
He nodded.
“So?” Jamie joined us in the living room with a bowl of popcorn.
“So what?”
Jamie sighed. “Who cares if the wicked witch is back?”
Taken aback by his tone, I said, “I mean, I don’t, it’s just—”
He slammed the bowl onto the coffee table. “Just an excuse for you to fuck things up with Sarah?”
“No. I was going to say—”
“I hope you know she gets me in the breakup,” Jamie said with a straight face.
“Hm. That’s not the threat you think it is.”
Jamie huffed and focused on his phone. He’d been glued to the thing all day, despite his saying no phones during “guy time”. I didn’t call him out in case he was talking to Sarah and could tell me what she was up to.
“We’ll support you with whatever you want to do, Con.” Tom leaned back, sipping his beer.
“You guys have to stop acting like I’ve been waiting for Laura to come back to me. I had that chance last summer and turned her down. Sarah is my girlfriend. Period. End of story.”
Jamie’s head shot up from his phone, his lips parted.
“Okay. No more talking about my relationships.”
Grant laughed. “Fine. How’s work?”
I sighed and reached for the last piece of pepperoni pizza. “Which job?” We shared a laugh, and I said, “I can’t wait for the semester to start so I can drop working for Uncle Rick.”
“He still giving you shit?” Jamie asked, guilt written all over his face.
I shrugged. “No more than usual.” Handing Grant the bag of popcorn, I asked, “You plan on going to school now that you have the army to pay for it?”
“I don’t know.” He scratched the back of his head. His hair was short, like it had been for the last four years, but now he had a fade with a more fashionable shape-up. “I should. I mean, that’s why I enlisted, but a part of me is enjoying having free time.”
“There’s no rush.”
“Sure, but I don’t want to be even older than you starting my freshman year.”
“It’s a little late for that, man.”
He flipped me off, but his mood had lifted a bit. “I figure I’ll take this year to fuck around and figure out what I want to do, then I’ll apply.”
“Vague, simple. I like it,” Tom said with a grin. He ducked, the pillow Grant threw barely missing his head. “What?”
“It’s not like you have some grand plan, dickhead.”
“Hey! I’m helping my dad.”
“Oh yeah, you’ve always had a deep passion for agriculture.”
Tom’s lips thinned, and his face turned pink. “It may not be my passion, but unless Travis comes back, I’m all my dad has.”
“Guys—”
Grant cut me off. “Don’t do that. Your dad can manage without you.”
“So, what should I be doing, oh wise one?” Tom ran his fingers through his shaggy brown hair.
“Music. You should try to do something with your music.”
Tom scoffed, crossing his arms tightly. “That seems like a real secure career path.”
“I didn’t say it was, but you have all the resources to at least give it an honest try. But instead, you waste your day dealing with soybeans—a food you don’t even like to eat. For what?”
“You wouldn’t get it.” He ran a hand down his face and stood. “I have to take a piss.”
Grant wasn’t bothered at all. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time they’d had this fight.
“You guys really know how to have a good time.” Jamie’s eyes widened in false excitement, still typing away on his phone.
“What do you suggest? Should we get on our phones?” I’d had enough of his little comments about me being boring.
He chuckled, setting his phone on the coffee table. “There. My phone’s down. Now what?”
Grant and I looked at each other. We didn’t have any ideas. That’s why we were playing video games. But now the gauntlet was down, and it was time to come up with something great.
“Uh.”
“Why don’t we . . .”
Jamie released a long-suffering sigh, but his small smile gave him away. “Come on. I know what we can do.” He jumped off the couch.
“Wait for me!” Tom yelled from the bathroom.
“Hurry up!” Jamie dug through the kitchen drawers. “Do you have any lighters?”
“We’re not doing anything illegal, are we? I’m not interested in getting arrested. I just got my freedom back from the government.” Grant tugged the dog tags around his neck, his eyes shifting around nervously.
“Not illegal, more like frowned upon. Bingo!” He slammed the drawer closed and raised the lighter in the air. “You guys are not seriously worried about the police, are you?”
I shrugged, not relishing the idea of dealing with Kirksville’s finest. Or Uncle Rick.
“You guys literally stole a tractor and drove it through town,” Jamie said.
“That was Tom’s dad’s tractor. It was hardly stealing.”
“Fine, Con. How about when the cops picked you up with backpacks full of spray paint in the same color as the dick painted on the water tower?”
“Hey, we did our community service, and that was before we were eighteen, so our records are clean,” Tom said, coming out of the bathroom, wiping his hands down his thighs. Dude never dried his hands completely. Totally grossed me out.
“I see where this is going, so I’m done arguing. Let’s go.” Jamie walked out of the apartment.
We filed out, and I locked the door, praying that Jamie’s idea of a fun night wouldn’t be anything too wild.
When I caught up with the guys on the street, Jamie held out his hand. “Keys, please.”
“No way.”
“Come on. You don’t know the plan.”
“Then tell me, and I’ll drive.”
“Nope.”
Tom snatched the keys from my hand and tossed them to Jamie.
“Hey!”
“Sorry, but Jamie’s right. We’re acting like old men. It’s time to fuck some shit up!”
Tom and Grant jumped in the back, and Jamie got behind the wheel.
“Connor! Connor! Connor!” All three of them chanted, slowly at first, but then ramping up until they sounded like they were at a ballgame. People smoking outside the bar joined in, and as others walked up, the voices grew until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Fine! Just shut the hell up!” I got into the passenger seat to my friends’ cheering and whistling, and some of the people on the curb booing me. “Drive, Jamie.”
Rubbing the steering wheel, he bounced in his seat. “Yes, sir!” Turning the engine over, he murmured something I didn’t catch. “Strap in, boys. Get ready for a bumpy ride.”
Half an hour later, Jamie pulled up to the place you would park if you were going to the abandoned ski lodge.
“Really? This is your big idea?” Tom laughed, chugging the rest of his road beer.
Rolling his eyes, Jamie popped open the trunk.