Let Me (O'Brien Family, #2)(22)

She rolls her eyes, but keeps her smile. “You’re right. They are dumbasses. Did you hear what Angelo did when he was at Kutztown?”

“Streaked naked through a sorority house?”

“No―I mean, yes, that, too. But there’s more.”

“Pissed in front of the dean’s house?”

She starts laughing. “Yes. I heard that, too. But did you hear how he and his cousin got wasted and broke into a state store?”

I unbuckle my seatbelt and swivel in my seat. “When the hell was that?”

“Last semester of senior year during finals week.” She follows suit and removes her seatbelt, turning to face me and getting all into the story. “They claimed they were drunk and stressed from the exams. So they break in through a back window. But an alarm goes off and the police come.” She makes the raw-oo, raw-oo sound of a siren for effect, making me laugh. “Well, of course, they panic. And panic and dumbasses don’t mix well. His cousin grabs a case of Sam Adams, screaming something like, ‘if I’m getting caught, I’m getting caught taking beer.’”

I hold out a hand. “Back up a minute. He thinks it’s better to get caught with evidence rather than just taking off with the hopes of not getting caught at all? Nice,” I say, laughing harder.

“I know, right? Like you said, total dumbasses.” She bounces in her seat. “So the cousin runs off, carrying a case of high-end beer in hand. Angelo grabs a six-pack of Schlitz and another of Iron City and takes off like the building is on fire.”

By now I’m laughing so hard my sides are killing me. “What an *.”

Sol waves an arm out. “And who gets caught?”

“No way. Tell me it wasn’t Angelo.”

She nods. “His father had to drive up to bail him out. From what I heard he smacked him upside the head on their way out of the precinct, humiliated―not because his drunk son broke into a liquor store―but because of the type of beer he stole. Is it a wonder Angelo is so screwed up?”

I wipe my eyes because yeah, I’m laughing that hard. “Okay. I have a good drunk story for you. You know my brother Seamus?”

“The contractor?”

“No. That’s Angus. Seamus is the carpenter. Anyway, since Seamus never went to college, he never experienced what it was like to hit the parties, join a frat, that sort of thing. He was playing around with the idea of going when Curran enrolled and was pretty much shouting to the world how he was having the time of his life. Seamus felt like he was missing out. Curran, being who he is, invites him up during Greek Week or whatever it’s called. Big mistake.”

She covers her mouth. “On Curran’s part or Seamus’s?”

“Oh. Seamus’s for sure. Curran still thinks the incident is funnier than hell. So Seamus goes up, thinking he’ll check out the campus, maybe go to a few parties and have a few laughs, that sort of thing. And at first, it’s all good.”

“Until it’s not?” she offers when I pause to work things through.

“Until it’s way not,” I say, starting to laugh all over again. “So Curran and Seamus start making their way to all these parties with Curran’s frat brothers. One beer leads to another, a few shots, well, you get what I mean. Curran somehow loses Seamus. Can’t find him. Doesn’t know where he is. He and a few of his frat brothers take off looking for him. His frat brothers locate him first, lying on the front lawn of some sorority house trying to find his girlfriend at the time. FYI, she didn’t even go to the school.”

“Oh, God,” she says.

“It gets better,” I tell her, because it does. “The sorority girls know Curran’s frat brothers and insist they take him home to his girlfriend because ‘the poor guy really misses her’ and ‘if my boyfriend wanted to see me, I’d want someone to bring him home’. So the frat boys do.”

“That was nice of them.”

I huff. “No, they just wanted to get some. Anyway, they shove Seamus’s drunk ass into the car and drive all the way back to Philly. They more or less toss him on her front yard so they can get back to the hot sorority sisters, never suspecting Seamus would try to make out with his girlfriend’s mother, thinking it was her.”

Sol’s mouth pops open. “Are you serious?”

I laugh again. “Totally. Seamus stumbles toward his girlfriend’s front door completely wrecked out of his mind, falling over when Mom opens it. She screams for her daughter. They hook his arms around their shoulders and are dragging him inside, all worried about him, when Seamus pulls the mom to him and he slips her the tongue.”

Sol cracks up. “Oh, my God. Did she break up with him?”

I nod. “Yeah. But he and the mom are still going strong.”

Her eyes whip open before she realizes I’m messing with her and starts laughing again. “That is unbelievable!”

“I know.”

“So what happened?”

“The mom drops him like a pile of wet laundry and the girlfriend kicks him in the face. If that’s not bad enough, they call our mother. Seamus was like twenty-one at the time. Ma shows up and drags him out of their house by the hair, screaming at him that he’s going to hell.”

Sol says something like, “Madre de Díos,” before dropping her hand from her face and shaking her head. “I can honestly say, that’s never happened to me.”