Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Steele is more than capable to back Ruxs if he—”
“Steele is my brother, not my partner,” Ruxs cut in. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Green swallowed, shame and anger warring in his chest.
He hated this. Hated that it made him appear weak.
“You know I don’t like flying,” he whispered harshly.
“I know you don’t,” Ruxs said, lowering his voice. “But you said you’d do it. You took the Valium, right?”
“Yes,” he hissed.
“Okay, give it time. It’ll kick in before the layover. Then you can just sleep the last leg.”
He’d taken it right before he’d left home. It wasn’t doing a damn thing but making his tongue feel thick while his brain continued to scream for him to run.
God was getting more visibly agitated by the second. Day, Tech, and Free, on the other hand, looked entertained. Which only made Green more homicidal.
“I’ll drive and meet y’all there,” he muttered, taking a few steps back.
Day laughed. “You mean meet us there next week?”
“Honestly,” Tech said, adjusting the strap of his bag, “the odds of dying in a car crash are about one in a hundred. But dying on a plane is so rare the odds couldn’t even be calculated last year. So yeah, driving makes more sense.”
Green turned on them with a scowl sharp enough to kill on spot. “All of you fuck off.”
The gate agent lifted the microphone. “Final call for boarding.”
Perfect. A countdown. Exactly what his nerves needed.
“I’m going to my seat,” God said. “You both better have your asses on that plane before it takes off.”
He turned and walked away, not looking back, because of course he did. Just walked casually into that death portal as if he were getting on a ride at an amusement park.
Green dragged both hands through his hair and started cursing. Quietly at first, then louder when it didn’t help. “Fuck. Fuck this. Fuck that plane. Fuck this whole trip.”
Day laughed harder. “You didn’t happen to just watch Cast Away, did you? I mean, sure, everyone else died, but Tom Hanks does make it off the island…four years later.”
Green lunged for his lieutenant before he could think better of it.
Ruxs caught him around the waist and hauled him back against his chest.
“Day,” Steele called over his shoulder while heading down the jet bridge, “leave him alone.”
“I’m just saying,” Day said, still grinning as he boarded.
Free examined Green with that fascinated expression he got when certain human behaviors offended his brilliance.
“During the westside bust, you jumped from a second-story balcony onto a moving SUV, with three men shooting at you, and didn’t die… but you can’t get on a commercial flight where you have, statistically, a one in eleven million chance of dying? I’m so confused. And I’m never confused.”
Green was furious that everyone kept acting as though his fear wasn’t understandable. God wielded two Desert Eagles handguns at the same time but had a crippling fear of rodents.
The gate agent stared at them with strained patience. “I have to close the doors now.”
Free and Tech went through the door, leaving him and Ruxs.
The airport turned too quiet.
The gate area was mostly abandoned. The glass windows reflected only the two of them, and beyond it sat the huge, waiting, steel-bellied animal with its mouth open, ready to swallow him whole.
Something caught his eye below the wing.
Movement.
“Oh shit.” He jabbed at the window. “What are they doing? See! I told you! There’s some mechanical shit happening.”
A cluster of men were moving, lifting and shifting things in and out of the underside of the plane.
Ruxs sighed. “Those aren’t mechanics. They’re the guys who load the luggage and people’s pets and shit. There’s nothing wrong with the plane.”
Green tried to breathe slower.
He couldn’t.
He kept staring anyway, waiting for smoke, sparks, a premonition, or the tiniest sign that would justify him turning around.
Ruxs stepped in front of him and cupped his warm hands against his cheeks.
The joking was gone, there was no grinning, taunting, or smartass comments. Just that hard, steady look he gave him when he was telling him he had him.
Then he kissed him.
It wasn’t soft or pretty. It was firm and grounding, cutting through the doubt and noise in his head. Enough to make his surrounding narrow down to Ruxs’ mouth, hands, and his heat.
When Ruxs pulled back, he kept his hands on Green’s jaw, thumbs stroking along his cheekbones.
“You can do this,” Ruxs said quietly.
He grabbed fistfuls of Ruxs’s sweatshirt, needing more to hold on to.
“I’m right here with you,” Ruxs said. “You’re not doing this alone.”
Green swallowed hard.
“You’re fierce as hell, and you know it. If anything happened, you’d be the first motherfucker on that plane trying to save everybody else.”
That was the humiliating part.
If the plane did go down, if something failed, if the cabin filled with smoke or a terrorist tried to break into the cockpit, he knew exactly what he’d do.