The Player's Club: Lincoln by Cathy Yardley Read Free Book Online Page B

described.”
    “What?” Terrence asked, his mouth falling open.
    “Wait, what?” Juliana echoed, getting up out of her chair.
    Lincoln put a firm hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to sit down. Of course, she didn’t budge, merely shrugged off his hand with a glare of her own. Lincoln sighed.
    “We obviously haven’t had an issue like this before,” Lincoln interrupted. “We’ve never had anybody say they were going to do something illegal. We can’t condone someone stealing something.”
    “We’re not the law here,” Finn said reasonably. “And technically, unless Terrence owns that burned-out abandoned rattrap across the street from his company, he’s going to be breaking the law on that one, too.”
    Lincoln gritted his teeth. “There’s a difference between defacing property and theft,” he pointed out, in a strained voice.
    “Yeah, like five to seven years,” Scott, one of the newest members, called out from the crowd.
    “So she’d better not get caught, then?” Finn said, a laugh creeping into his voice.
    For a split second, Lincoln thought about clocking his best friend. Just one hard right, preferably in his grinning face. But he managed to rein in the impulse.
    “We’re going to need to discuss this,” his friend Tucker said. “Huddle up, and you two pledges sit tight, okay?” With that, he gestured to the group, leading them to the far side of the room.
    The rest of the group huddled as best they could—twenty-five people was hardly a discreet huddle, Lincoln thought—and they started to discuss it.
    “This is insanity,” Lincoln said.
    “It’s a charge,” Finn protested, “and a change. We’ve done fairly basic challenges up to this point. Traveling, stuff like that. Not to say it hasn’t been cool,” he hastily assured several of the new members who had chosen travel, “but I’m just saying this could be a blast for a lot of us players, as well as the pledges. And if they’re coming up with this just in the challenges, imagine what sort of player’s outings we could come up with…”
    “Like what? Raiding Fort Knox?” Lincoln yelped.
    “All right, knock this shit off,” Tucker insisted, clearly irritated. “I know you two started this club, but we’re a democracy. So let’s just vote on it and act over it. All those in favor of letting these two go for the challenges, say aye.”
    A chorus of muted “ayes” echoed in the plant-strewn room.
    “Okay. All those opposed?”
    Lincoln’s “nay” was the loudest, but there weren’t very many of them. Lincoln grimaced.
    “We’d all be accomplices,” Lincoln couldn’t help adding.
    “Only if they caught us,” Finn said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He looked totally revved up. “Besides, nobody’s saying she has to break into Fort Knox. You worry too much.”
    “I want to help out on the paint challenge,” Scott said, and his girlfriend Amanda nodded.
    Lincoln blanched as he saw most of the players volunteering to help with either of the illegal challenges. He pulled Finn aside.
    “If we get caught, the chief of police is going to kill us,” he said. “Ever since the article came out, you know he’s been pissed. You know he’s been just itching for one of us to slip up.”
    “You worry too much.”
    “You don’t get it,” Lincoln growled, glancing over at where Juliana was sitting in her chair, staring at him. “She’s up to something.”
    Finn shrugged. “I’m only going to say this once, dude. Switch to decaf. Seriously.”
    “She’s doing this for publicity,” Lincoln said, almost inaudibly. “I’m sure of it. She’s going to expose every one of us if it will help her stay famous.”
    “Yeah?” Finn’s eyes narrowed. “Prove it.”
    Lincoln clenched his teeth so hard he was surprised his molars didn’t crack. “If I can?”
    “Then she’s out. And I’ll make sure she’s sorry she ever messed with us,” Finn added, with more seriousness than Lincoln had ever seen