Read Time's Up Online

Authors: Janey Mack

Time's Up (24 page)

BOOK: Time's Up
2.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
“Sorry to interrupt.” The hostess stopped at our table. “Twenty-five minutes until your flight departs, Mr. Bannon.”
Chapter 33
“Thank you, Hank. For this. For all of it.”
Hank pulled the seat belt across my lap and clicked it home. “I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble.”
We took off.
Is it just me or is the first-class cabin suddenly getting smaller?
I fanned myself with the inflight magazine.
I ordered another drink.
Old enough to know better, numb enough not to give a red robin.
The first-class flight attendant brought me my fourth martini of the morning. I got it halfway to my lips, and my hand shook so bad I sloshed a half ounce on the tray table.
Hank took the glass from my hand, flipped up the armrest, and pulled me into his side. I cried all the way back to Chicago. Not the bawling, noisy kind, but the stream of tears that just wouldn't stop.
I'm sure it was the martinis.
It had to be the martinis.
 
I took stock in the vanity mirror of the passenger side of Hank's G-Wagen. Only semi-hideous. Red nose, splotchy cheeks, eye makeup remarkably intact.
Cheers to you, Chazz Blue-Hair.
Hank opened the driver's-side door, and I closed up the visor. “Okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He waited until we were on the freeway. “Call your mother. Tell her you're on the way home.”
Kind of not at all how I thought this John Hughes event-of-romantic-magnitude would end.
“To my house,” Hank said.
It took me a mile to calm down enough to get my phone out of my purse. I hit Home on the screen and waited as the phone rang.
Thierry, Thierry. Please let it be Thierry.
“Honey?” Mom said, “Where are you?”
“Chicago.”
“Daicen said Hank was bringing you home. Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
“I'm so sorry.” I could hear the hitch in her throat. “And how it happened . . . I can't believe the twins and I missed the setup. What were we thinking? Of course Dhu West would do anything to save Coles. Anyway, I'm cancelling all my afternoon appointments, and when your father gets home, we're going to sit down and—”
“I'm going to Hank's.”
“You're confused and upset, but—”
“Upset? Try wrecked!”
“That may not be the wisest course of action,” she said gently. “Are you sure you want the man you're not even sure you're dating to see you like this?”
Nice.
“Thanks, Mom.”
A low blow with a heaping side of sting, because—as always—she was right.
“You're in a fragile emotional state—”
“And I don't know that?” I said. “You think I don't know that?”
Hank put a hand on my thigh.
I sat there, dead air humming between my mother and me, as far apart as we'd ever been. Mom spoke first. “How long will you be staying with Mr. Bannon?”
I looked at Hank. “Until he tells me to go home.”
My phone started vibrating as we pulled into Hank's driveway.
Flynn
. I turned it all the way off. No way was I going to start fielding pressure calls from the Black-Irish gang.
Hank pulled into the first stall of his three-car garage. Pristine tan epoxy floor with matching cabinetry. The Super Bee was in the second stall. The third bay was extra-deep and empty except for a workbench and a line of black Craftsman tool chests.
He turned off the truck. I waited while he got my gear from the trunk and followed him inside, joy shriveling faster than a grape in the Gobi as we passed his bedroom and the living room. All the way to the other side of the house. To the guest room.
He planted my suitcase at the end of the bed. “You want some sweats?”
I had some in my suitcase, but the idea of wearing something of Hank's was more than my wretched self could resist. “Sure.”
He left and I sat down on the guest bed. Midcentury modern cool, queen, graphite-upholstered headboard, with ink and gray sateen bedding. Disconcertingly recognizable. I'd seen this room before, but where?
I stood up and walked to the far corner of the room and got the full effect. Purposely mismatched nightstands. One an accent table with a mercury glass lamp, the other a steel-based ebony nightstand with a large, empty stainless-steel picture frame. And then I knew.
The catalogue.
Guest room by Room & Board, living room by Restoration Hardware, basement by
Soldier of Fortune
.
I giggled.
“What's so funny?” Hank stood in the doorway with a neatly folded stack of T-shirt, sweatpants, and hoodie.
“Nothing.” I coughed and gestured at the room around me. “So, what page is this? Thirty-seven?” I made a grab for the clothes.
Hank jerked the sweats away and scowled. “252, smart aleck.”
I laughed, palms up. “I mean, it looks great—”
“Of course it does.” He grinned and held the clothes out of reach. “Room and Board pay people to design their products. Then, they spend even more to art-direct those products to sell them. So why try and improve on what sold me in the first place?”
Hank logic. Devastatingly beautiful in its simplicity.
Of course, most people don't have the resources or the mentality to purchase an entire room en suite.
He offered me the sweats in a mock-football handoff. “Get changed.”
 
I changed, brushed my teeth, washed my face again, used a healthy amount of primer under a new layer of makeup to cover the tear streaks, and sucked down three Excedrin scavenged from the bottom of my purse all the while telling myself to pull it together.
Hank was in the kitchen. “You all right?”
“Sure.” I took a seat at the counter. “You ready to tell me why Da had me kicked out of the Academy?”
“Beer or vodka?”
I was finally sharpening up. Now was not the time to go as dim as an energy-efficient light bulb. “How about a Coke?”
He took a Budweiser and a Coca-Cola out of the fridge, popped the tops with a bottle opener, and handed me mine.
Hank came around the counter and sat down next to me. “I don't know why. Just that he did.”
“Yeah, about that . . .”
He took a long pull from his beer. “I hinted.”
“Uh-huh.”
You'll have to do better than that.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Who am I to mix it up with your clan?”
“My friend?”
Wishing, of course, for a heck of a lot more.
“I am.” He swiped the comma of dark hair off his forehead. “I got the tip the day it happened.” He shrugged. “I didn't see a copy of the paperwork for another couple weeks.”
We sat there, silent. Me, tracing invisible skull and crossbones patterns on the granite countertop while Hank finished his beer. “At least”—he got up for another—“you weren't expelled.”
Hold up, Mr. Wonderful. We'll have no thieving of my silver-lining-finding thunder.
“But why would he do this to me?”
“Christ, Maisie.” Hank popped the cap off the beer.
“What?”
“Aside from putting your life on the line every day, the only people you come in contact with are the scum of the earth and the people they've victimized.”
“I know what the job is.”
“Maybe he doesn't want that for you.”
“But it's fine for my brothers?”
“I don't want you to be a cop, either.” He looked me straight in the eye. “But I don't have the right to tell you what I want. Because I'm not the guy for you, Princess.”
The darkest day ever just keeps getting darker
.
Payback in some sycophantic, Philistinian, karmic way for my can-do attitude.
“How can you say that?”
Hank paused, searching for the perfect words to crush the remaining flicker of life out of me. “There are things I do that I can't tell you. And there are things I do that I won't tell you.” He took my hand in his. “And while you might think you're fine with that”—he laced his fingers through mine, locked his pale eyes with mine—“I don't know how you could be. I couldn't.”
“I trust you.”
“Said the little lamb to the wolf.” He stared down at our hands, mouth quirked in a bitter smile. “You're with me and I tell you stay out of the garage, so you just do, Pandora? No questions asked? Or how about I tell you I'm going to be gone for a week and you don't hear from me for five?”
“Wow. That many girls couldn't cut it, huh?”
His chin came up, but his voice stayed even. Implacable. “I'm sure your brothers will vet someone more appropriate.”
Oh, so now I get an arranged marriage by torture committee?
“They've given Lee Sharpe the nod,” I lied. “You know—the Bullitt? Huh.” I leaned back in my stool. “So, he's the one for me, yeah?”
Hank's jaw turned to iron. “I'm not going to spar with you, Gumdrop. Not after what you've been through.”
Talk about a kill shot.
I thought I was cried out, but my eyes misted up anyway.
We spent the rest of the night tersely eating pizza, sharing Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond straight from the container and watching
Key Largo
on TCM.
Afterward, Hank walked me to the guest bedroom, bent and kissed my cheek. “Knowing I'm the wrong guy doesn't make it any easier.”
Chapter 34
Hank's Law Number Twelve: Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
Maisie's Law of Final Desperation: Resistance is futile.
Unfortunately, I was not properly armed with a black silk Natori negligee. There's only one reason for packing uncomfortable sleepwear, and it sure as hell wasn't for the
Good Day USA
defamation tour. Instead, I was dwarfed in one of Hank's black Army tees, hem ending just above my knees.
It took me an hour to scrounge up the nerve.
What the hell? If I'm going to crash and burn, I may as well do it kamikaze-style and take him down with me.
I got out of bed and padded all the way down the hall to Hank's room. Tiny Indiglo lights lit the way like an airport runway. His door was open. “Hank?”
“Stop,” he said.
I froze.
Oh God, I'm officially beyond stupid.
Next stop, Humiliation City.
I stood in the doorway, trying to recall the carefully crafted yet inane excuse as to why I was out of bed and needed to wake him up.
“I'm outta good guy, Maisie,” he said in a husky growl that sent a shoal of shivers up my spine.
What?
Hank sat up and turned on the light. Bare-chested, hair rumpled, he hadn't been sleeping, either. “You come in here, you won't be leaving.”
My breath escaped in a half-sob, half-laugh.
“Well?”
With a giggle of pure joy, I ran and jumped onto the bed. Scrambled up next to him and sat down, knees together, hands folded, staring straight ahead, blank-faced.
I waited a good five seconds, then glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.
He tackled me. “Jesus, you're a pill,” he said, nuzzling his scruffy face into my neck until I couldn't breathe for laughing.
“But I'm cute.”
He loomed over me. “No,” he said, eyes darkening. “You're a knockout.”
Ooooh.
He taunted me with feathery kisses across my lips and eyes and cheeks, until I couldn't bear it any longer. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down to me, mouths melding together.
His hand trailed up my thigh, fingers tracing lines of seduction across my panties. A funny little clicking noise came from the back of my throat.
Hank smiled against my mouth and slid a hand underneath my hips while the other snaked up the nape of my neck. He eased me upright against the pillows, kissing me with a sort of lazy intensity, like we had all the time in the world, while I felt like razor wire being wound too tight. I splayed my fingers across his chest and pushed.
He rocked back on his heels, the look he gave me white-hot.
With a brazen assuredness I didn't wholly feel, I crossed my arms in front of me and slowly pulled the T-shirt up and over my head.
“Oh fuck,” he rasped. “Fuck.”
Not exactly what I was expecting.
He was not staring at my taut and tape-hickied rack, but instead at the enormous black bruise migrating across my belly.
“Hank.”
“Aw, Christ.” He dragged a hand through his hair.
“Hank,” I said sharply. “I'm fine. Turn off the light.”
He considered for a moment, then reached back and snicked off the light.
Oh yeah.
 
Watery early morning light sifted between the curtains. Hank lay on his stomach, facing me.
Absolute perfection.
I watched him breathe for a while, his back rising and falling. Except for the scars, especially a really horrible one next to his scapula, his body was a flawless P90X commercial.
Jeez. What time is it?
I tugged the Army T-shirt off the nightstand clock. 5:05 a.m.
No rest for the wicked, infirm, and occupationally challenged.
I slid off the bed and crept toward the door on cat-quiet feet.
“Where are you going?” Hank said, right as I hit the doorway.
I wheeled around. He lay unmoving, just as I'd left him. “I gotta shower,” I said. “Get to work.”
“You don't have to do that anymore, Slim.”
“Yeah, I do. For a while, anyway.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “You gonna let me borrow the Super Bee or the G-Wagen?”
He rolled over onto his back. “I'll drive you. On one condition.”
“Oh?”
“Shower with me.”
So that's your evil plan.
“Like hell,” I said and ran laughing down the hall to the guest bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, we were drinking sugar-free Amps on the way into downtown, the Super Bee traveling at speeds the muscle car was meant for.
He stopped in front of the Interceptor lot. “Call me when you're done. I'll be here in twenty.”
I nodded, blush prickled my cheeks.
Shy? Now?
Seriously, WTH?
I reached for the door handle.
“Hold up, hoss.” Hank got out of the car and came around to open my door. I got out. He closed the door and jerked me to him, his mouth on mine, hot and hard, backing me up against the Super Bee, his hands sliding up underneath my shirt. He lifted his head. “Don't be late.”
Jaysus.
Weak-kneed and mush-minded, I walked to the sidewalk and watched him drive away, a gooby smile plastered across my face.
Time to get serious.
Chen was protecting the carts from behind the
Tribune
in the guardhouse. I stepped over the spikes and under the gate.
He slid open the window as I passed. “Where's your fancy uniform?” He leered.
“Niecy here yet?”
“In the cart.” He put his hands together, bowing and laying out his best mock-pigeon English. “Oh! You big star now, McGrane.” He pretended to vomit and laughed uproariously. “Big star!”
Cute.
BOOK: Time's Up
2.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Marry Me by Susan Kay Law
Snow in August by Gao Xingjian
Tess and the Highlander by May McGoldrick
Baseball Flyhawk by Matt Christopher
The Chaos Code by Justin Richards
Cooking Up Trouble by Judi Lynn
Heavy Duty Attitude by Iain Parke
Lifelines: Kate's Story by Grant, Vanessa