Read Online Time's Up by Janey Mack - Free Book Online

shove. “I’d like to help, if you’d let me.”
    â€œThing is, Pot—” Flynn stood up. “It’s hard to hire you as a junior officer, when you’re dating a criminal.”
    He left the room.
    â€œWho is this criminal?” Thierry shot me a sideways look. “What is he like?”
    â€œHank.” I smiled and thought about our housekeeper’s obsession with Game of Thrones . “He’s a younger, darker Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.”
    â€œ Dieu, a man. No wonder Flynn dislikes him so. When do I meet this Hank?”
    â€œHe’s taking me out on Friday.”
    â€œTypical.” He lifted a shoulder in a Gallic shrug. “Why not a day of my work?”
    â€œBecause”—I rounded the counter to the fridge and opened the freezer—“I don’t want you to steal him.”
    â€œBah. No cardboard tonight. Come, I make you something.”
    â€œActually, I was thinking of ice cream for Cash.”
    â€œSit,” Thierry ordered. “I make you a bribe worthy of consideration.”
    â€œThat bad?”
    â€œCash, he looks like the thunder.” He shook his head and laughed. “Is no good for you, Maisie.”
    Â 
    I carried the silver tray with two rectangular plates of tropical banana splits up to my brother’s room. Empty. But his Xbox was on pause.
    Twenty-to-one, he was sitting in my room, in the dark, waiting to pull a gangster moment and turn on the light as soon as I entered. I nudged the door open with my foot.
    Cash flipped on the light. He was sitting in one of the taupe microfiber armchairs nestled in the bay window. I set the tray on the coffee table, put a spoon on the ice cream plate and offered it to him. He ignored me, removed a folded-up piece of paper from his shirt pocket, and tossed it across the table.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œOur contract.”
    I held out the ice cream again. “You want some, or do I get both?”
    Cash took the sundae and started eating.
    I sat down and unfolded the paper.

    I, Maisie Lee McGrane, do solemnly swear to fulfill the following duties until so directed by my generous brother Cash McGrane.
    1) Be Cash’s thrall.

    He and his best pal and partner, Koji, had been worshiping at the Lord of the Rings altar again. There was no number two. “Nice,” I said.
    Cash flipped his dark hair off his forehead. “Not as nice as the four-page text I got from Jennifer talking about what she’s wearing to the Gala. Jaysus.” He tossed me a pen. “Sign it.”
    I did. He shoved another enormous bite in his mouth.
    How can he not get a brain freeze?
    â€œApparently I’m also taking Jennifer to some idiotic art house movie tomorrow night.” Cash pulled out his car keys and tossed them on the table. “You’ve got a busy night ahead of you. Detailing my car.” He scraped the rest of the ice cream off the plate and licked the spoon.
    I felt a twinge of guilt. Real guilt. The sick, twisty kind in the bottom of my belly. “You bet. I’m sorry about this. I just . . .”
    â€œYeah. I know.” Cash set his empty plate on the tray. He picked up mine, took a bite, and said around a mouthful of mango and banana, “I’m a prince of a guy.”
    Â 
    Wednesday morning I hit Dispatch at the crack of dawn.
    â€œIs it just me or did you time travel to Florida for a vacation?” Obi said, maneuvering his Star Wars wheelchair around the counter.
    It took me a minute to catch his reference to my spray tan. “Cost me thirty bucks this morning.”
    â€œYou’re the first PEA I’ve ever met with a fake tan.”
    â€œThank the gods I have one. Otherwise you’d be blinded by my pure and unholy whiteness.”
    He gave a thin, braying laugh and motioned me back. I followed him up the handicap ramp and out the back door of the Dispatch office.
    â€œI had one of the guys leave a boot out back on