AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh?” My eyes narrowed and I eyed him warily. “Gerard. What did you do?”
“Offered him a mild sedative before we left the house.”
“You did what?”
“How else was I supposed to get him in the box?” he demanded, looking affronted. “You know how ratty he gets when I touch him.”
“Oh god, this is a bad idea.”
“It’s a great idea,” he corrected, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “And we’ve got this.”
“Oh, Gerard, look at the dog,” I cooed, eyes locked on a pampered Pomeranian.
“He doesn’t have shit on us…”
“Claire.”
“Claire.”
“Claire!” The sound of my brother’s voice thundered through my ears, disrupting the most epically perfect memory dream I’d had in weeks and startling me into a sudden state of confused consciousness. “Come on, will you? It’s gone seven. I’m leaving in ten minutes.”
“Gone seven?” I called back sleepily. “In the morning?”
“Yeah, let’s go,” his deep voice boomed from the other side of my bedroom door. “Hurry up.”
“But it’s still summer, Hugh,” I wailed, momentarily panicking that I’d somehow slept through the last few days of our summer holidays and was about to be thrust back into corridors of Tommen. “And it’s Saturday!”
“Yeah, genius, I know it’s Saturday,” he drawled, tone laced with a healthy dollop of brotherly sarcasm. “Listen, Mam’s been tormenting me since your birthday to get you a job at the hotel. Kim told me to bring you along this morning, there’s an opening for a part-time lifeguard at the pool, and she wants to give you a trial run while I’m on duty, so get your ass in gear because my shift starts at eight, and I won’t be late for you.”
“A trial?” Scrunching my nose up in distaste, I stretched my legs out and yawned. “For what?”
“A job,” came his sarcastic response.
“But I have a job.”
“You volunteer at the public swimming pool, Claire,” he replied, sounding more impatient by the second. “Lifeguarding at the hotel is a paying job.”
“Smart-ass.” Yawning sleepily, I snuggled deeper into the mattress, feeling beyond exhausted. “Give me five more minutes, will you? I’m just resting my eyes.”
“Rest your eyes all you want,” my brother replied. “But I’m leaving in ten minutes. Dad’s holed up in the attic on a deadline, so he won’t take you, and—”
“Then I’ll ask Mam,” I called back before he could finish.
Hah.
Take that, sucker.
“Mam’s not back from the night shift at the hospital yet,” he swiftly continued, not missing a beat. “She won’t be back in time.”
“Hugh, please,” I complained, kicking my legs under my duvet in frustration. “Just give me five more minutes!”
“No, because I know that your version of five minutes really means forty minutes and I need to leave in ten,” he replied, sounding more impatient by the second.
“Keep talking and you’ll bore me back to sleep.”
“Fine. Suit yourself,” he called back. “But when Mam bitches about you not getting a job, don’t even think about dropping the blame baton onto me, princess.” There was a long pause before his voice boomed again. “Oh, and you can tell that asshole that he was supposed to meet Cap at the gym two hours ago.”
That did the trick.
