Free Pieces (Riverdale #1) by Janine Infante Bosco Page A

behind it. Sam
swirled around in her bar stool.
          “Cara? Where are you going?”
          “See that group of guys playing darts? I’m
going to go play nice with them. Are you coming?” She said as she threw her
hair over one shoulder and started for the dartboard.
          Sam hurried off the bar stool and followed
her. “Wait for me!”
     
          Jake watched Cara walk over towards the
guys that were surrounding the dartboard. He didn’t know what the hell she was
up too, but he didn’t like it. She never mixed with the crowd here; claiming
she didn’t want any complications at work. Yet there she was grinning like a
banshee and fluttering her eyelashes at a group of men, that he knew were
regulars. He was going to kill his sister, pinning her as the culprit behind
Cara’s sudden flirting.
          Cara was a decent dart player too, knowing
she had the upper hand, only made his blood boil more. He watched as she drew
her arm back, aiming at the board, her shirt lifted revealing her taut stomach.
If she lifted her arm any higher, the swell of her breast would be on display.
The breasts he held in his palms yesterday, and dreamed of all night. What a
joke this had become. He copped one feel and now he was so fucked.   She released the dart and it flew through the
air, pinning the center, which he was pretty sure she envisioned as his head.
          Nick cleared his throat, startling Jake
out of his angered trance. “Man, you’ve been chalking that stick for five
minutes. There’s nothing left but a pile of dust on your boot.”
          Jake tore his gaze from Cara as she high
fived Sam and glanced down at his chalk covered boot. He shook his foot,
letting the dust fly off and scowled at Nick.
          “Is that why you’re always here?” Nick
asked. “Afraid someone is going to scoop her up?” He motioned towards Cara and
Sam. Cara was talking to one specific guy from the group now.
          He knew he must’ve looked completely
unhinged to Nick. He barely took his eyes off of her to make his shot. “No, I’m
here, because it’s where I want to be.”
    Nick
nodded, accepting the answer.
          “She doesn’t usually get like this.” Jake
threw him a quick feeling like he had to explain his behavior.
          Nick simply nodded, drinking his beer. He
put his mug on a table beside the pool table. He sauntered around the table,
figuring his next shot. He crouched down and eyed the ball, but glanced up at
Jake. “So, she usually doesn’t flirt with guys, is what you’re saying?” The
pool stick connected with the ball and it rolled into the pocket.
          Jake flinched for two reasons, first one
being Nick hadn’t missed a shot yet, and second his words made him feel
ridiculous. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say he sounded like a jealous
fool. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.” But it was. “She doesn’t usually drink
and she doesn’t like to tangle with the guys in the bar.”   When one of the guys took her hand, Jake
clutched his beer tighter.
           Nick
walked up behind him. He could’ve cracked a bottle over his head and he
wouldn’t have even flinched. “Why watch from the sidelines?”
          “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jake
asked, acknowledging he was behind him.
          Nick shrugged, choosing his words. “You
joke about me and Sam, dancing around each other, when it’s exactly what you’re
doing with Cara.”
          “No, it’s not. Me and Cara…, we’re
different. She does her thing and I do mine. I’d cut off my left nut for her,
but we’d never work.” He forced himself to turn around and look at Nick.
          “Why’s that?” It was a simple question, a
valid one at that, but he didn’t have an answer. For as long as he could
remember, when anyone questions why he and Cara had never made a go for it,
they had one answer. It would never work. The four words had