A Heart-To-Heart Between Fraternity Brothers: Part 2

Socrates Johnson7 years ago

The following is a continuation. To get caught up on all action, drama, and intrigue, you can read part one here.

Sam finally set down the keg that he had been clutching for what seemed like days now. He climbed atop the steel beer barrel as if it were a barstool and took a hearty pull from the Fireball fifth. A decent-sized cut above his right eyebrow continued to drip blood on his already stained shirt.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Nick eventually blurted out.

“Just a little keg stand-based casualty,” Sam responded. “It’s all good, though. I ended up clocking in at 75. That has to be a world record or something.”

75? As a freshman? This kid is really going places, Tommy thought. Nick and Tommy exchanged a quick “holy shit” look, but mostly maintained outwardly calm demeanors. They didn’t want this relative greenhorn getting too big for his britches.

“Not bad. Not bad at all,” Nick said, before changing gears.

“So, Sam, let me hit you with a hypothetical. Say you’ve been dating a chick for, I don’t know, the past four years or so. Then, with only a few months until you’re about to move in together — after four years or so of being completely faithful, by the way — you decide to start fucking other women. What do you do? You move in with her and keep porking other chicks on the side? You tell her the truth?”

Sam let the questions hang in the air for a bit before finally just shrugging.

“Honestly, I’m probably the wrong person to answer that question. The longest relationship I’ve ever had was morning sex with a girl I boned the night before.”

Tommy didn’t much care for hypotheticals, and in his drunken state he didn’t much care at this point if Sam knew the truth. Plus, in that moment he felt like he could trust the kid to keep a secret.

“Sam, can I trust you to keep a secret?”

Sam eagerly nodded.

“It’s not a hypothetical. I’ve been cheating on Julia.”

Sam took a contemplative swig of Fireball. During pledge semester, he and his fellow pledge brothers were supposed to memorize the names of all of the actives’ girlfriends. Julia was one of the few names that he had consistently remembered. She was always around the house. Seemed like a cool chick.

“Shit. Who with?”

Tommy hadn’t been entirely prepared to deal with that bold question, but he had already opened the can of worms. May as well let it spill.

“Lucy Myers. And Shannon Nickels. Katie Thomas, Amy Johnson, Jessica… shit, I forget her last name. My poli-econ TA. The really tall chick on the basketball team, the really short chick on the volleyball team…”

Nick and Sam’s mouths were agape as Tommy listed his rendezvous. Nick figured it was more than just one, but that list was a veritable Rogue’s Gallery. Sam was just straight-up impressed. He got an outside-the-dorm beej from Shannon Nickels during welcome week. She was a 10/10 smoke.

“I guess that makes me a real shithead, huh?” Tommy posed.

Teetering back and forth on his keg stool, Sam appeared to be thoroughly lost in the sauce. Then, all of the sudden, his head jolted up like he just had some sort of eureka moment.

“See, this is why I love you guys. Y’all are fucking legends.”

Maybe not exactly the most diplomatic thing to say considering the circumstances, but Tommy knew the kid’s heart was in the right place.

“Seriously though,” Sam slurred, “Joining this fraternity was probably the best decision I’ve ever made. I fucking love partying with you guys more than anything.”

Nick nodded approvingly.

“We’re glad to have you as a brother, Sam,” Tommy said. “Just try keeping the bleeding on kegs to a minimum. We need the deposits back on those things.”

“Speaking of kegs, I think they just tapped a new one in there. Think it’s about time to break my record,” Sam said, before presenting the fifth of Fireball to Nick like it were some sort of venerable offering and stumbling back into the house.

Nick smiled and shook his head. He took a pull from the fifth and handed it to Tommy, who did the same.

“That kid is an animal,” Nick said.

“He’s almost as sloppy as you were freshman year,” Tommy responded. “Almost.”

Nick and Tommy both laughed. Tommy lit up the last of his cigarettes and stared thoughtfully at a key-pierced Natty Light underneath the right leg of the rocking chair. He swiftly swung his weight forward, crushing the can under the leg.

“What’s up?” Nick asked.

“Just thinking.”

“So what are you going to do? You going to talk to her about it?”

“Yeah.” Tommy took a long drag. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m gonna head back inside and make sure Sam doesn’t kill himself,” Nick said.

“Hey, if you ever want to talk about, you know, the improv stuff or anything like that, just let me know,” Tommy blurted out.

Nick smiled and nodded and walked away.

It was weird, Tommy thought. He hadn’t really thought about things with Julia until now. How shitty he was for cheating on her with all those girls. How the prospect of spending the rest of his life with her had freaked him out from day one. How for almost four years, he had been with her and only her. Almost four years was a pretty good run, he thought.

He had no plans to talk about things with Julia, at least not anytime soon. But he thought it was good that on one of the nights that you’d bring up years from now, full of those “remember when” moments — on one of those nights that Tommy lived for — he could have a heart-to-heart between fraternity brothers..

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