Friends & Forever Read Online Free PDF Page A

easily.
    Nicholas lunged at Carmine, barely giving
him enough time to brace himself for the impact. The fist landed on his jaw,
pain tearing through his face and down his neck as his head jolted to the side.
    "Knock it the hell off!" Dom
shouted.
    Carmine held his hands up to stop his
brother from intervening again. "Let him get it out."
    He'd get it out, and they'd be fine
    They always were.
    Dom hesitated but took a step back at
Carmine's insistence. Carmine, watching his brother, not wanting to involve
him, hadn't been prepared for Nicholas's attack. Another blow landed right in
his nose, blinding pain blasting him as whiteness coated his vision. The agony
spurred him to react, and he blocked Nicholas's next hit, instead punching
back.
    Fists flew as the boys lunged, kicking and
striking, all out brawling in the grass as the crowd formed around them. They
beat the daylights out of each other, blood pouring
from both of their faces, knuckles bloody and bodies battered by the time their
energy waned. Dom finally stepped in then, ignoring Carmine's protests, and
shoved the two of them away from each other.
    "Enough!" he shouted. "What
the hell, guys? You're best friends!"
    Nicholas spit on the grass as he shook his
head, blood running down his chin. His lip was split. "Not anymore."
    Those cold words struck Carmine so hard he
visibly flinched. He hadn't even flinched from Nicholas's fists. "Don't be
fucking stupid."
    "Stupid?" Nicholas stepped
toward him, but was blocked by Dom's body wedged between them. "You're
dead to me, DeMarco. Dead ."

 
    * * *

 
    For the second time that night, both boys landed in the
emergency room in Durante. This time, however, there was no laughter. There was
no joking. There was nothing funny about it.
    Carmine sat still on the edge of the
sterile white bed as Jenn restitched the wound on his
eyebrow. His earlier stitches had been torn out in the scuffle.
    Nicholas sat no more than ten feet from
him, on the end of the adjacent bed, another nurse cleaning his wounds. Between
them stood Vincent DeMarco, both of their charts in his hand, a look of
indecision on his face as he glanced between the two of them. He obviously
wondered what the hell happened, but Carmine knew a part of him realized it was
an answer he didn't want to hear.
    After Carmine's stitches were back in and
both boys were bandaged up, Vincent waved the nurses off, dismissing them from
the room. They quietly left, and Vincent shut the door behind them, sighing as
he tossed the charts down on a small table. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he
turned back to look between them again. "The ER twice in one night… are we looking to set a record?"
    Neither spoke.
    "What happened?" he asked,
waving between them. "Who did this to you? I know you didn't do it to yourselves ."
    Carmine scoffed at that as Nicholas let
out a dry laugh, licking his split lip. They still didn't speak. What the hell
could they say?
    "Ah." Vincent seemed to get it
at that moment. "You did it to each other."
    Again, they said nothing.
    Vincent eyed them peculiarly. "Do we
need to involve the police?"
    That finally got them speaking.
    "Nah, no big deal," Nicholas
said, hopping down off the bed and wincing as he put weight on his ankle.
"I just fell."
    "Sounds about right to me,"
Carmine muttered.
    Nicholas knew the routine by now, going
into his own chart and grabbing the sheet out to be discharged. He said nothing
else, strolling out without another word. No 'goodbye'. No 'see you later'. No
nothing. Not even a 'fuck you'.
    Carmine sat there for a moment, staring
straight ahead. He could feel his father's gaze on him, assessing him, judging
him. "What did you do, Carmine?"
    "What makes you think I did
something?"
    Vincent strolled over and roughly grasped
Carmine's chin, lifting his head to survey his face, purposely making him look
him in the eyes. Angry, Carmine shoved his father's hand away. He hated when he
did that, when he so casually manhandled him. It