Awakening the Mobster by Amy Rachiele Read Free Book Online

cut. They’re on beer two. Vito chucks his cup to the ground smiling. Beer three.The pretty girl who hands him the cup tries to steal a kiss. Vito shuts her down by waving his finger at her in a nuh-uh gesture. The crowd gives a low “Oooooh...” The dissed girl gets angry. The guy next to Vito is slowing down. Vito keeps going. His body is quickly getting slicked with beer.
    Beer four and five are a blur. “How is he not affected?” I ask Antonio. Vito is running to the arm wrestling table. He sits down not even fazed by the alcohol he just chugged.
    “We’ve been drinking a long time,” Antonio says with mirth. “It started with the wine Nonna makes in her cellar. It was downhill from there.”
    Vito slams the arm of the wrestler onto the table with little effort. It happened in seconds. WOW!
    He runs to the other side of the grass. Kissy-Guy was out. This guy had won two rounds at least. Without ceremony, Vito punches the guy square in the face. He goes down hard, like a sack of potatoes. Vito runs right by him to the flag and grabs it. He holds it up. Everything happens so fast. The crowd, Erin and I stand with our mouths open, dumbfounded. Antonio cheers for his friend, breaking the semi-silence.
    “Woo-hoo, Vito!” he yells.
    Vito marches over to us. Antonio and Vito clasp arms and slap each other on the back. I feel cold with the loss of Antonio’s arms. The smell of stale beer emanates from Vito. Erin glances up at him. He puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder and smiles down at her.
    “How was that?” he asks. “You need a little entertainment.” He is grinning wickedly at her. She pushes his arm off her shoulder and walks away.
    At that moment, tons and tons of people from the party come over. Smacking Vito, high-fiving him. Girls wiggle their way closer to him, flirting. Gushing about how they’ve never seen anything like that. We are encircled with people. I am uncomfortable.
    Apparently, Vito isn’t finished. He has to fight the next guy to make it through the Gauntlet, a sour voice tells him in the din. Troy is ecstatic about Vito’s performance.
    “Dude! You were awesome!” Troy yells.
    I can see the outline of Erin sitting on the grass by herself way away from the crowd. She is shrouded in darkness. I walk over and sit on the grass with her.
    “You okay?” I ask her.
    “Yeah,” she replies, playing with a blade of grass.
    I sigh, “Looks like we could be here awhile.”
    Erin shivers. A body flops down next to her. It’s a guy. He startles us both.
    “Hi,” he says.
    “Hi,” I return.
    He speaks to Erin, “Not happy to be here, huh?”
    Who is this guy? He’s cute. Light brown hair, lean but not too skinny. It’s too dark to see his eyes.
    “No... It’s okay.” Erin says meekly.
    “I’m Jake.” He holds his hand out to shake with her. Oh, one of the arm wrestler guys.
    “Erin,” her voice is so soft, almost a whisper.
    I feel him before I see him. Antonio is hovering over Jake, staring down at him intimidatingly. I know that look well now. Troy appears too.
    “This is Jake.” Troy declares. “He lives in my dorm.” Antonio seems to accept this and sits down behind me. His warmth is cozy and soothing. “Well, Vito is making an impression.”
    “Yeah, college life seems to agree with him,” I deadpan.
    Vito is waiting for his next victim. He is dancing in place, hooting and shouting. Girls try to stand on their tiptoes to kiss him and hang on him. They are giggling and laughing like he’s a celebrity. He doesn’t even acknowledge them, except the really forceful ones, he pushes them aside gently.
    “Too bad the actual studying part doesn’t agree with him,” Antonio says into my ear making me shiver.
    Someone replaced Jake at the arm wrestling table. More and more guys are getting in line to try and beat Vito. The Gauntlet is just firing up. Vito takes down three more challengers. The crowd around him thickens and grows. We can barely see him now.
    Antonio