Page 73 of Pucker Factor

“Uh…as you recall, I did just that.”

“Oh, please,” she rolled her eyes. “You weren’t there to see me. You were there for a job.”

“Where I saw you,” I pointed out. “And saved your life.”

“Technically, I saved her life,” IRIS sighed. “Not that anyone cares about my contributions.”

“I jumped on her and pulled the wire out of her vest.”

“Yes, and blew up a building. Good job,” he grinned. “And Cash thinks I’m the one with the problem.”

Now I was just getting pissed off. “The only one with the problem is her,” I pointed at Sarah. “Maybe if she could make up her mind, none of us would be in this situation.”

“That’s why you leave it all behind,” Max said, staring up at the sky through his sunglasses. He raised his hand as if painting a picture. “You just walk away from life and say fuck you!” He raised both middle fingers to the sky, then slumped back down.

I stared at him, wondering if he was truly okay. “You alright, big guy?”

He scoffed, shaking his head slightly. “I’m on a raft in the middle of the ocean. I’m fucking perfect.”

“Really?” I had to question his sanity. “Because I could think of about a thousand places I’d rather be right now than right here with all of you.”

“Hey,” Scottie Dog snapped. “This is not the worst situation we’ve been in after jumping out of a plane.”

“Maybe for you,” I pointed out. “As you’ll recall, I haven’t been with you all the times you’ve crashed.”

That made Max sit up. “Just how many times have you crashed?”

“Why? Does it matter? You crashed too.”

“Right, but we were overloaded in a very old plane.”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” Scottie argued. “Everything went to shit approximately when you started pulling tricks out of your ass. You knew that plane wasn’t supposed to go upside down.”

“I also knew we were going to die if we didn’t escape them,” Max shrugged. “I took my chances.”

“And nearly killed us!”

Max chuckled. “Sounds like you’ve almost done that more than a few times.”

I had to agree with him.

“Hey, there were extenuating circumstances,” Scottie said. “There were people firing at us, and birds…and more people firing at us.”

“Sounds like you need a fighter jet,” Max said, leaning back against the raft.

Scottie looked at me curiously. “Do you think I could convince Cash?”

“To buy you a hundred million dollar plane that you’ll inevitably crash?”

“Hey, not all of them are a hundred million.”

“How much are they?” Sarah asked.

“Some are only eighty-five million,” Scottie countered. “That’s a savings of a whole fifteen million dollars.”

“Which Cash will kill you over if you don’t die at the bottom of a mountain the first time you take it out.”

“You know, I’d just like to point out that IRIS blows up buildings,” Scottie retorted.

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