The Player's Club: Lincoln Read Free

Lincoln nodded at the other guys sitting around the circle and gave a discreet thumbs-up to the one in the center—the pledge, Jerry Knox.
    They exited the tent, and the cool night air was like a shot of ice-cold vodka, refreshing and intoxicating. “You okay?” Lincoln asked, inhaling deeply. “Sometimes guys pass out in sweat lodges. It’s no big deal.”
    “Nah, I’m fine,” Finn said, waving a hand. He knuckled sweat from his forehead. “And this has been a pretty decent challenge, all things considered.”
    Lincoln sighed. “But…?”
    Now it was Finn’s turn to sigh. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad we kicked out George.”
    “Damn straight,” Lincoln muttered under his breath. He knew Finn had some residual guilt about kicking his cousin out of the Player’s Club, but Lincoln, for one, could only see the pluses in getting rid of the drunken, arrogant misogynist. “So, what’s the problem?”
    “I agree with the rules we set out, and I think we’re being more careful about who we’re bringing in,” Finn said. “Maybe we’re being too careful, though.”
    Lincoln frowned, taking a few steps in the grass, working the kinks out of his legs. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting in the sweat lodge. “What do you mean, ‘too careful’?”
    “The challenges. I’m glad we’re asking what you’d do if you only had six months to live, but we’re getting the same thing, over and over. I like traveling, but I’ve been to Amsterdam, Paris, India—hell, even Antarctica, you know?”
    “That was not a boring challenge,” Lincoln pointed out.
    “But it’s all been done. We need some fresh blood…somebody who’ll have some new challenges. Something different.”
    Lincoln grimaced. “We’re doing a new challenge right now. Jerry’s a good kid.”
    “Yeah, yeah. They’re all good kids,” Finn said. “But he’s the first pledge we’ve added in two months. And we’ve got plenty of other requests. Why can’t we bring more people in?”
    Lincoln turned to his friend, surprised. “There’s thirty of us,” Lincoln said. “Hard enough to keep a secret, and if we keep adding members…”
    “We had closer to sixty before we peeled off George’s crew.”
    “Again, look how well that was going.”
    Finn huffed out an irritated breath. “Listen, I’m not saying we should go back to what we were with George. I don’t want the drinking and hazing and all that macho crap. But I don’t want us to get so careful that we forget why we started the club—to face what scares us, to do what we’d regret missing. Besides, I don’t think we need that many new recruits. But I am saying, if you’re going to cherry-pick and keep it down to just a few people every couple of months, let’s make them people who are really going to challenge us, as well as themselves.”
    Lincoln stared at Finn. Finn was his best friend, had been for nine years. Albeit, sometimes there felt like a barrier between them, a difference in basic opinion. Finn hadn’t been like this nine years ago. He was growing more and more restless…almost dangerously so.
    That might not be a great thing for Finn, Lincoln thought, with a nasty jolt of concern. But bottom line, it would not be good for the club.
    Still, he trusted Finn…and no way was he going to ignore what Finn was saying.
    “Do you have anybody in mind?”
    “I’ve got a couple of candidates, sure,” Finn said.
    “Anybody I know?”
    “How about Tark?”
    “Ellis Tarkington?” Lincoln said. The wail inside the sweat lodge grew louder as somebody started playing a tom drum. Lincoln felt the sweat chilling on his body and wished he’d thought to bring his shirt with him. “The guy who tried to imitate that magician and froze himself in a block of ice?”
    “They got him out in time,” Finn said, shrugging. “But okay, good point. How about Mike Romello? He made it up to Everest, for God’s sake. Twice.”
    Lincoln closed his eyes. “I think