Free Indulge by Angela Graham Page A

would’ve set him back a few months’ pay from that diner.
    Caleb walked over with the group of guys, introducing me
before we took a seat at the table. I sat across from Caleb; it was our
routine. We never sat close during a game. If something was up, we knew each
other’s tells, so we always sat where we could see them.
    After the guys took a few shots at Caleb for his
elusiveness on why he’d skipped town a couple years earlier, the cards were
dealt.
    “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” a girl asked, walking
up behind Josh and putting her hands on his shoulders, sliding them down over
his chest. They appeared more intimate than friends, but his unaffected
reaction told me he’d had his fill of her.
    She had a pretty-enough face—one of the prettier ones
there—but she was no angel. I shook the thought away as soon as it hit.
    “Mackenzie, this is Caleb and Logan. Guys, this is
Mackenzie,” he threw out casually.
    Her eyes grew wide. “Oh my God! You’re Luke’s older
brother, right?” she squealed, directing a broad grin at Caleb.
    “That’s me. How do you know Luke?” Caleb asked, lowering
his cards.
    “We went to school together.” She ran her thumb over her
bottom lip, flirting with him. “I remember you. You were a senior, and one of
the hottest guys in town.”
    She wasn’t shy, nor was she his usual type. The girl was
all bones. I rearranged my cards in my hand. When I glanced back up a moment
later, Caleb was patting his leg for her to sit.
    “You gonna be my beer wench tonight?” he asked, moving
her hair to the side.
    “I’ll be whatever you want tonight,” she purred.
    And he was set. Good for him, but one look around the
room left me coming up blank. The girls there were just that— girls— barely
legal, not for me. The rest had been around the block a few too many times. I
liked my girls with a touch of class—not so rough around the edges. Still, after
a few more drinks, one of them would do.
    Within the hour, the smack-talking college kids sitting
around us were out of money and on the couches, welcoming more girls as they
straggled in. Their seats were quickly replaced by more local guys Caleb went
to school with.
    “So what’s going on with the paper?” asked the guy who
grabbed the seat beside me. “It’s all my dad’s bitched about the past week.”
He’d been eyeing the table for a while from across the room. I only noticed
because of the overly tight polo shirt he was sporting. It had to belong to a
chick.
    Josh stared down at the cards he was shuffling, not
paying attention, and another guy sitting beside him piped up. “My grandma’s
looking for a buyer. Problem is, none of them are good enough.”
    “Good enough?” Polo Boy screeched. “To run the fucking Tribune ?
Hell, you should buy it, Josh. Sell that rotting diner and move up.”
    “Fuck you, Mark!” Josh snapped.
    Mark? No way the blonde had ever dated this putz!
    But was this really the same Mark that Josh had been
referring to? The town was small enough to have me questioning it. I tipped my
head to get a better look at the guy. He played the jock look for the girls,
but there was no denying he was nothing more than a cocky little boy.
    “Sorry, man. I’m just saying—” Mark started.
    “Well, don’t,” Josh cut him off.
    The tension was thick in the air, and I was unsure why it
was such a sore subject. Crass or not, the diner was a shithole.
    “You’ve been running that diner for what—two, three years?—with
no success,” Caleb said gently. “It needs a lot of TLC, and your dad wouldn’t
want that burden on you.”
    “I’m not selling it. It was his life.” Josh narrowed his
eyes at Mark, then began dealing a new hand, making it clear the subject was
closed.
    Mark seemed happy enough with changing the topic.
    “Gotta admit, Caleb, I didn’t expect to see you back,” he
said, staring down at his cards. “I just ran into your brother a few weeks ago.”
    “And how’s he