Page 79 of Caught Up

“He won’t come near the grill,” Tyler said. “The smell of cooking meat makes him puke.”

“Oh, so he’svegan,vegan.”

Tyler let out a humorless snort. “Yup.” And with that, he sauntered off, back into the crowd.

I shook my head at his retreating form and then went to join Aly and Lauren by the catio. “Josh is trying to summon us to his lair.”

Aly winced. “I told him we should keep things vegetarian, but he didn’t want to put everyone else out.”

She headed over to him, and we followed after her. Three feet away from Josh, Lauren stopped dead in her tracks, staring at him. I tried not to let it get to me. I was man enough to admit that Josh was probably the handsomest bastard I’d ever seen outside of a movie, but I didn’t love the fact that Lauren seemed to think so, too. Until I realized she wasn’t looking at his face, but his arms and the tattoos crawling up them.

She glanced from Josh to Aly and back again. “Aly...” Her eyes flared. “Oxen free?”

“Oh, Jesus,” Aly said, grabbing Lauren’s arm and dragging her away.

I frowned as they brushed past me. “The fuck?”

Josh had a sheepish expression on his face when I turned back around. “Don’t look at me. I have noideawhat that was about.”

For some reason, I didn’t believe him.

Forty-fiveminutes later, I’d eaten, suffered through small talk with Aly’s coworkers, met the older couple who lived next door to her, had another awkward exchange with Tyler, and was ready to get the fuck out of there.

Lauren did much better, befriending everyone she met, kicking ass at cornhole despite the fact that her heels kept digging into the grass, and doing an excellent job of making me seem like less of an asshole.

Josh and I now stood in the corner, him drinking a beer, me a macchiato from the fancy new espresso machine my father sent Aly as a birthday gift. I didn’t miss the fact that Josh had spent most of the party half turned away from the others when he wasn’t forced into conversation with them. My father was bad, buthisfather was an infamous serial killer, and Josh looked a lot like the guy, something he was stillself-consciousabout. He’d come a long way in the past six months, but I could tell being around a crowd this size still made him uncomfortable.

“Were you able to find out who owns McKinney’s debts?” he asked.

“Jesus, keep your voice down,” I said, pulling him farther away from where Aly, Lauren, and a handful of other women sat nearby, sharing the bottle of wine Lauren brought.

Josh winced, glancing over his shoulder like a little kid worried about being overheard. The man was not cut out for stealth work.

“Yes, I found out,” I told him once we’d retreated all the way to the fence line.

“Aaand?” he said, excitement in his eyes. This was probably why Aly wanted to keep him away from illegal shit; he seemed far too tempted by it.

I shook my head. “It’s some newer bookie. He stepped onto the scene a year ago and has been slowly moving up the ranks, running bigger and bigger card nights, slipping his guys into the horse tracks and the stadiums and pissing everyone off.”

“How so?” Josh asked.

“By not doing things the old way. He’s crossing into people’s turf without asking and then leaving it before they can track him down. Finding him is going to be a pain in the ass, and no,” I said, when he opened his mouth, “you can’t help. None of this requires a computer.”

Josh eyed me. “Everyone has a digital trail.”

“Not this guy,” I said. “Apparently, he’s a paranoid bastard. And cutthroat. I have my brother Stefan on it. He can find anyone in the city.” And out of all of my brothers, was most unlikely to rat on me since he was Dad’sleast-favoritekid (which the asshole made no secret of) and was generally left alone because of it.

“Cutthroat, how?” Josh asked. “You’re not putting yourself in danger, are you?”

The concern in his voice made me want to squirm. Having friends was going to take a while to get used to. “I’m fine,” I lied—I was always in danger. “He’s not any worse than the other people I deal with. I meant cutthroat with money. If I have any hope of getting a fair deal, I need to catch him off guard. If he has time to look into the debt or McKinney’s holdings, he’ll try to milk me for every penny I’m worth.”

Josh frowned. “Let me know if you need extra cash. We have some lying around.”

I waved him off. “Save it for your wedding and honeymoon. I’ll be fine. Crime is lucrative, and besides my bike and my piece of shit apartment, I don’t spend money on anything but investments.”

Josh perked up. “I didn’t know you were into the stock market. How’s that going?”

“Pretty decent,” I said. “It’s a good nest egg.” It was better than a nest egg. I could retire tomorrow and live off the dividends for the rest of my life if I was frugal. Not that my dad would let me.

---