6. Slider
6
SLIDER
“Alright, first order of business. We have a job that just came in for a security install,” Lock said, holding up his folder.
“Ooh, I’ll take it!” Kavanaugh said, holding up his hand, wincing as the skin pulled at his neck.
It was fucking pathetic what the man had to go through just to get a little bit of excitement in his life. Since the attempt on his life, he’d done nothing but recover in a glass box with everyone staring at him. The fact that he was even allowed in these meetings was amazing.
Lock shot him a surprised look. “You want to do a security install?”
“Anything. Give me fucking anything,” he pleaded.
“Nope. Not doing it,” Red stood. “After the last security install with the woman and the…” He held out his hands in front of his chest, mimicking boobs, then shuddered. “Not happening. Find someone else to do it.”
That was interesting. I hadn’t heard of anything particular happening on any install jobs. “What happened with the woman and the boobs?” I asked curiously.
“Yeah,” FNG protested. “And why are we just hearing about it now?”
“Because it wasn’t your fucking job,” Eli snapped.
“Nothing’s our job,” Fox muttered. “You’re a liability, Fox. Don’t throw those knives, Fox. Stop eating Funyuns on the job, Fox.”
FNG joined in with his own complaints. “Umbrellas aren’t a weapon, FNG.”
“Don’t drink Jameson while you’re flying, Max.”
I slid my gaze to Max and frowned. “You know, that one’s actually kind of important.”
“Sure,” he snorted. “Side with them.”
“I side with living, but sure, we’re all ganging up on you.”
Lock slammed his fist down on the table, drawing everyone’s attention. “Not that you care, but we do have things to do around here,” he grumbled. “Eli, you and Red take the security install. Kavanaugh…get a sandwich. You’re looking a little pale.”
“Pale? I’m—” He took a deep breath, drawing on all his patience.
Lock continued, completely ignoring Kavanaugh and the way he was flipping out. “Fox, I’ve got a special one for you.”
Fox sat upright in his seat, his eyes comically wide as he stared at Lock. “Seriously? You’re putting us out in the field?”
“That is what you’re trained for, is it not?”
“Yeah, I mean. Totally, but…You know, Cash never let me do anything. And Max, well, he’s always drunk. But hey, this is awesome! I finally get to use my knife skills again!”
“No knife skills. You’re on special assignment, and there are absolutely zero knives allowed.”
Fox’s shoulders dropped in sadness. “Well, that sucks. What’s the job?”
“Transport.”
FNG sighed. “Fucking figured. I bet it’s like a mummy or something.”
“Hey, don’t fuck around with those,” Kavanaugh jabbed his finger at FNG. “That shit isn’t funny.”
“Yeah, if you’re scared of dead people,” Max retorted.
“Would you guys fucking stop?” Lock shouted. He slid the folder down to Fox. “You’re transporting a package. It is very important that you don’t fuck this up.”
“Right,” Fox grinned. “So, what is it?”
“I don’t know,” Lock shrugged. “But whatever it is, it’s worth more than your fucking life, so you’d better make sure it arrives on time and in one piece.”
FNG leaned forward in his seat. “Wait, you’re telling me that we’re transporting something and we don’t even get to know what it is?”
“That should be easy for you,” Kavanaugh snorted.
“And why is that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. With all the stories you tell that never seem to have an ending, this should fit right in.”
“You’re fucking hilarious.”
“I know. That’s why I said it,” Kavanaugh said mockingly.
Max lit up his cigar and leaned back in his seat. “So, I’m needed in the air?”
“Nope.”
“Then what exactly is my purpose on this mission?” he asked, sliding his sunglasses down his nose to stare at Lock.
“You’re there to ride along and make sure Fox doesn’t scalp someone and FNG doesn’t try to kill himself for the fun of it.”
“So, I basically have no fucking job whatsoever.”
“Basically.”
“Good to know,” Max nodded, puffing on his cigar.
“Alright, and that leaves only one job,” Lock sighed. “We’re picking up two actors for a live training with the company. Thumper, your team will?—”
“Ooh, I volunteer!” Kavanaugh shouted.
I snorted in amusement as Lock glared at Kavanaugh. He just couldn’t catch a break this morning.
“Kavanaugh, you’re supposed to be dead.”
“And your point would be?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at Lock.
“That you can’t exactly be dead if you show up on the fucking camera footage.”
“I’ll wear a disguise.”
Lock pinched the bridge of his nose. “Would you just—fuck, this is gonna be a long day. Thumper, your team is up. Under no circumstances are you to allow Kavanaugh anywhere near this fucking op.”
I chuckled at that. “Is this really an op? Boss, it’s basically a television show, right?”
“Technically, yes, but it’s a paying gig, and a damn good one.”
“So, we’re doing what exactly?” IRIS asked.
“Training seminar. Think of it as a ride-along.”
We all groaned in unison. “Fucking hell, are you serious?” That sounded like the worst thing ever. “Boss, you want us to have actors tag along with us? That’s gonna be such a pain in the ass.”
“It’s not up for debate. And since you screwed up your last job of doing the one fucking thing I asked of you, suck it up and do what I ask. And stop calling me boss. This is only temporary,” Lock snapped.
“Can’t we just blow something up and call it a day?” IRIS asked.
“For once, I’m with IRIS,” Thumper nodded.
“Thanks, man. It’s about time you were on my side.”
“I’m not on your side,” Thumper retorted. “I’m on the side of this being as painless as possible.”
I raised my hand, not that anyone ever gave a fuck what I thought. “I vote we put them in the worst fucking situation possible and end this in the first fifteen minutes.”
“Yeah,” Kavanaugh huffed. “Put them with Fox and they’ll be begging to go home.”
“Hey, I resent that,” Fox snapped. “I happen to be a very likable personality.”
“You can’t be a personality, dickhead,” Kavanaugh threw a pencil at him.
Fox ducked, glaring at him. “You know, Cash would have your ass for throwing a Ticonderoga.”
“Cash isn’t here,” Kavanaugh tossed back.
“Right, because then you’d be out of a job.”
“And you’d be out an eyeball.”
“Fucking hell!” Lock shouted. “This is not the third grade and I am not the playground supervisor!”
Kavanaugh stuck out his tongue at Fox, and Fox held his hands up on the sides of his temples and made a silly face while wiggling his fingers. Christ, at this point, I’d take the actors over this bullshit.
“When’s the pick up?” I asked, cutting through the crap.
“Three days,” Lock said, grateful that I was getting us back on track.
“What exactly are we supposed to do with them?” Thumper asked. “You don’t actually want us to take them out on a job, do you?”
Lock sighed heavily. “They’re covered for everything, but as of right now, we’ll take them to the training center and take them through the motions. If we get called out on a job, we’ll take them along and keep them in the background.”
“That shouldn’t be at all distracting,” IRIS muttered.
“Who are these actors?” Thumper asked.
Lock glanced back at the folder and frowned. “Um…Audrey Leigh and Spencer Gable. Oh, and their cameraman will be along also. Steven Grouper.”
The names sounded familiar, but hell, the last time I’d watched a movie was…fuck, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually sat down and had time to watch anything new.
A low chuckle filled the room, followed by a loud guffaw. I glanced around until I saw Max cracking up in his chair, something that was completely out of character for him.
“Man, you are so fucked.”
“Why?” Thumper asked.
Max slid his sunglasses from his face and turned toward the table, tossing his glasses down. “Audrey fucking Leigh?” He chuckled again, shaking his head. “Tightest fucking body you’ve ever seen with curves so fucking?—”
“Don’t you have a wife?” IRIS snapped.
Max’s eyebrows shot up. “Sorry, I wasn’t aware that kept me from noticing a woman’s figure.” He shoved his cigar in his mouth and puffed on it with a shrug. “Just saying, keep your dicks locked down.”
“My dick is perfectly fine,” Thumper grumbled.
“Sure, you keep thinking that,” Max chuckled.
“What could be so special about this woman?” I asked, curious about her now more than ever.
“You’ll know when you see it,” Max grinned. “Man, I am so fucking happy I’m not on this one.”
“She’s that tempting?” IRIS asked.
“Nobody can be that fucking tempting,” I retorted.
IRIS swung his gaze toward me, his eyes nearly glacial. “Are you saying Jane isn’t fucking beautiful?”
“Maybe to you.”
He shoved his chair back and stalked toward me. “You’re saying you wouldn’t fuck Jane?”
“I’m sorry, did you want me to say yes?”
“My wife is fucking beautiful!”
I widened my eyes in surprise at how defensive he was getting. “What do you want me to say?”
“That you think she’s a fucking knockout. Because she is. She’s fucking tempting as hell!”
I remembered when we first met her and snorted. “Yeah, that first time we met her was?—”
He grabbed me by the shirt and tossed me across the room like I weighed nothing at all. My back cracked against the wall before I crumpled to the floor. I winced and shoved to my feet, rubbing the back of my head.
“What the fuck was that?”
“That was for whatever the fuck you were about to say.”
“You know, if I had said I would nail her, you would have been fucking pissed.”
“That’s beside the point!”
“Not really,” I snapped. “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t want me to say she’s beautiful and also not want me to fuck her.”
“There’s a line in the sand, asshole,” he snapped.
“I don’t look at her like that,” I retorted. “Yes, she’s beautiful, but I don’t think she’s gorgeous enough to make me get my dick chopped off over.”
“That’s because you have no fucking taste,” he argued.
“Holy shit!” Kavanaugh choked out. “Man, you have to see this.”
I glared at IRIS before striding across the room to where he sat. I shoved my way between everyone else to get a glimpse of what he was looking at. Hell, that was the woman Max was talking about?
“She’s alright.”
“Alright?” Kavanaugh laughed. “You need your eyes checked.”
“Well, if I wasn’t looking at her on a fucking four-inch screen,” I muttered.
He swiped up and tapped the controls, then she was on the big screen on the wall in all her fucking leather glory. I swallowed hard as I took in her curves and the way the black leather cut in a sharp v down between her breasts, giving me a glimpse of cleavage. And those hips…damn, that woman had curves for days. Long brunette hair tumbled over her shoulders and those eyes. Fuck, they stood out so brightly, even in the picture. Fucking bright blue. Tempting blue. Erotic blue. Not that I was looking. Or that it mattered. She was just another movie star.
Thumper chuckled behind me, clapping me on the shoulder. “Don’t swallow your tongue, man.”
I cleared my throat, shaking my head. “I’m not. She’s alright.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what your face just said.”
I glared at him, tearing my eyes away from the screen. “Yeah, she’s beautiful—just like every other shallow actress out there.”
“Watch it,” Fox snapped.
“Christ, I just meant?—”
“We all know what you meant,” Lock grinned. “I guess we all know who’s on close protection for Audrey.”
“Who’s Audrey?” I asked with a frown.
Lock rolled his eyes at me. “The actress in black leather that you were just drooling over.” He walked over and slapped a folder against my chest. “Guess you’d better read up on her before she arrives. Not that you wouldn’t do your due diligence. I’m sure that was next on your list of things to do.”
“Close protection,” I muttered as Lock walked away. “We’re not even protecting them!” I shouted. “It’s more like babysitting!”
“I’m sure you’ll do great!” he laughed. “Just remember, you can look, but you can’t touch.”
Like I needed the fucking reminder. I opened the folder and looked at her picture again.
Thumper walked up behind me and clapped me on the shoulder. “This one’s gonna suck.”
I huffed in agreement. “Maybe we could just stick them in the middle of one of Zoe’s movies.”
He laughed along with me and then we both looked at each other with wide eyes.
“I’ll talk to Zoe.”
He nodded. “I’ve got Red.”
IRIS held his arms wide. “What about me?”
“Explosives!” we both shouted at the same time.
“Sweet,” he grinned.
“Picking up. This is fucking ridiculous,” I grumbled on the way to the airport. “Why couldn’t they just meet us in Kansas? Are they that fucking special that we had to pick them up?”
“You’re just grumpy because you had to fly commercial,” Thumper retorted.
I glared at him from the passenger side of the rental. “And you’re not? Why the fuck didn’t Scottie fly us out?”
“Because he had another job, asshole,” IRIS muttered.
“Yeah, an install. That was really fucking important. I didn’t even have my gun on me. Do you know what that was like?”
Thumper sighed heavily from the driver’s seat. “I imagine it was the same for you as it was for us.”
“And you’re okay with feeling naked?”
“Christ, it was one flight. Let it go,” IRIS snapped.
“He’s just cranky because he has to be close protection for the lady in leather,” Thumper grinned.
IRIS chuckled. “The lady in leather. I like it. Ooh, how about the dark princess?”
“The dark princess?” Thumper groaned. “What the fuck kind of name is that?”
I rolled my eyes, staring out the window at the traffic moving slowly around us. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was cranky over the fact that I had to watch this woman. How the hell was I supposed to keep my hands to myself with a body that tempting just inches from me at all times?”
“—just saying, lady in leather is a hell of a lot better than the dark princess,” Thumper argued.
“You didn’t even give it a chance,” IRIS snapped. “You always have to be right. You just can’t stand to think that someone else might have a better idea than you.”
A scoff came from the driver’s seat. “I can guarantee that no one would think your name is better than mine. Tell him, Slider.”
“I’m not getting involved.”
“Pussy,” he muttered.
“Sexy seductress,” I whispered under my breath.
“What’s that?” Thumper asked, leaning closer.
I flinched, horrified that I had unwittingly gotten involved in their spat. “Nothing. I didn’t say a damn thing.”
“Me thinks the baldy doth protest a tad too much,” IRIS laughed.
I spun in my seat and narrowed my eyes at IRIS. “Me thinks thou doth spend too much time with Fox.”
His smile dropped instantly. “Cake eater.”
“What does that even mean? I like cake? Of course I like cake. I like cooking. How is that an insult?”
“That’s not what it means,” he snapped.
“Then why don’t you enlighten me.”
“It means…it means…”
“That’s what I thought,” I huffed in amusement.
“For fuck’s sake,” Thumper grumbled. “He’s calling you a spoiled rich boy.”
I raised an eyebrow, wondering where the hell he got that from. I swiveled again. “You think I’m a rich boy?”
“A spoiled rich boy,” Thumper clarified.
“I’m not rich.”
“That’s not what—” IRIS tried to explain, but I cut him off.
“According to Thumper, that’s the definition of a cake eater. And we both know Thumper’s never wrong.”
“He could be wrong.”
“I bet if I looked it up on my phone, it would say the same damn thing.”
IRIS rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna make the tiniest explosive in the world and shove it up your ass in the middle of the night. And when you least expect it, I’ll set it off and end you in the blink of an eye.”
I thought about it and nodded. “Well, at least it wouldn’t be painful. Sounds like it would be over pretty fast.”
“Where the fuck is this airport?” Thumper grumbled. “You would think an airport in California would not be that hard to find.”
IRIS leaned forward between the seats, breathing heavily on my neck. “There are over eight hundred airports in California.”
“Would you get the fuck away from me? I can’t stand when someone breathes on me.”
“So sorry, your majesty. I wouldn’t want to get in your air space.”
“Hey, this—” I said, slashing a line between us, “is my boundary line. You don’t enter it for any reason.”
“Even if you’re dying and the only way to save you is by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”
I flicked one eyebrow up. “Even then. If you put even one fucking lip over the line, I swear to God, I’ll cut off your balls. My airspace is a sacred thing and I will not have it tainted with the hot air flowing out of your mouth.”
He held his hands up, sliding back in his seat. “Good to know. The next time you’re lying on the ground dying, I’ll be sure to stay ten feet away.”
“I would appreciate that.”
“Where’s the fucking airport?” Thumper shouted, slamming his fist into the steering wheel. “Seriously, there are fifty fucking turns around here and they all go the wrong fucking way!”
“Aren’t you from California?” I asked casually.
“Ya know, there are currently twenty thousand people missing in California right this minute,” IRIS said, shuffling a deck of cards in the backseat.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
He shrugged. “Just found it interesting. We could be those missing people. Who knows where Thumper could take us.”
“Definitely not to the airport because Bob’s Airport doesn’t exist on any fucking map in California!”
I frowned at him, sure I had heard him wrong. “It’s not really called Bob’s Airport, is it? That’s a terrible name for an airport.”
Thumper slowly turned and glared at me.
“I’m just saying…no one names an airport after Bob.”
“It would be easier, though,” IRIS said thoughtfully. “Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. Talk about a mouthful.”
“Did you punch the directions into the nav system?”
“Of course, I put them in the nav system,” Thumper snapped. “Do I look like a fucking idiot to you?”
“Deadhorse Airport. Do they just have a bunch of dead horses there? Kind of creepy.”
I tapped the screen, but Thumper knocked my hand away. “I’m just saying, maybe you got the address wrong.”
“Because I’m stupid? Is that what you’re saying? I’m so fucking stupid that I couldn’t figure out how to punch a three instead of a four?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Gustavus Airport.”
“You could just pull over and ask for directions,” I suggested.
“I don’t need to pull over.”
I looked out the window and spotted a gas station on the corner. “Right there. I bet they know where the airport is. Gas station attendants know everything.”
“Unalaska Airport. Are they no longer Alaskan?”
I rolled my eyes at IRIS, about to snap at him, but never got the opportunity.
“So now you’re saying a gas station attendant could outsmart me? I served tour after fucking tour, but I can’t figure out the directions to a fucking airport?”
“It would appear that way,” I grumbled.
“Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport.”
“Or maybe I should pull over so you can drive.”
“I would appreciate that,” I snapped.
“Maybe it’s the home of Wile E. Coyote and Mr. Rogers…” IRIS pondered. “Although, I don’t know why they’d name an airport after them.”
I spun around in my seat and slammed my fist into IRIS’s face. “Would you shut the fuck up?”
He gripped his jaw as he caught himself on the seat. “Ow! Man, what the hell was that for?”
“For annoying the hell out of me.”
“Me?” he asked incredulously. “I’m annoying you? You’re the one who can’t have anyone within five feet of you, and can’t figure out where a fucking airport is. I’m just trying to entertain myself and drown out the sound of Mom and Dad fighting!”
“We are not fighting,” I snapped. “We’re just having a disagreement.”
“Exactly,” Thumper agreed. “It’s just a spat.”
“And like always, I’m right.”
Thumper snorted. “That’s because a man can never win an argument.”
I paused, my mouth dropping open. “Wait, why am I the woman in this scenario?”
“Did you hear the way you were bitching at me?”
“Guys! Guys!” IRIS shouted, grabbing our attention, pointing out the window. “Isn’t that the airport?”
I turned and looked out my window at the airport just across the street with a giant sign pointing to the entrance. “Fucking hell.”