Page 54 of Space Junk: Houston, We Have a Hottie
Adrenaline junkies. I know all about them, being raised by two of them.
“Sorry, where was I?” Jackie asks.
I clear my throat and focus on the present. “Corvettes?”
“Oh yeah.” She shifts forward, her knees skimming the side of my thigh, and my fingers clench around the spoon. “So Alan Shepard was known to show up to his training driving a Corvette. And after he became the first American in space, GM gifted him with a Corvette that had a custom interior, complete with altimeter gauges, like a pilot would use.”
Jackie could not be more perfect. She’s teaching me something about cars, while giving me a hard-on just by breathing. I try to feign nonchalance. “Cool. That must have been, what, a ‘61?”
“‘62,” she says with a wave of her hand. “But that was just the start. After Shepard, no one was allowed to be given cars anymore, for fear that it might look like the government was endorsing General Motors. But some dealer in Florida got around that by offering all the astronauts a deal where they leased a Corvette for one dollar, and they could re-lease a new model every year for the same cost.”
Her dress inches higher on her legs as she gestures.
I refocus on her eyes. “Dang. I guess it pays to be an astronaut.”
“Unfortunately, the heyday of astronauts being treated like rock stars is over. Which I think is stupid. They aresomuch cooler than rock stars.”
She has me chuckling at the pout on her face. It’s rare a woman can get a guy rock hard and laughing at the same time.
I make a note to look into ‘62 ‘vettes.
She pushes around the cereal in her bowl. Only the non-marshmallows are left. She might not have a caffeine vice, but my girl definitely has a sweet tooth.
One more thing I like about her.
I can’t ever remember wanting to know someone the way I want to know Jackie. And I want her to know me too.
The lies of omission that have been stacking up between us is getting to me. I want to—
The soundtrack fromSpace Odysseyreverberates across the great room.
Jackie jumps back and grabs her phone from her jacket pocket.
It probably isn’t the best time to tell her I confiscated the thong I’d found in her other pocket. I’m musing over the fact that that means Jackie is still going commando, when I see her face as she checks the screen.
“What is it?”
Jackie spins around me and jogs over to her boots by the door, beginning to put them on. “I have to go.”
Though momentarily stunned by the sight of her bare ass thrust up in the air as she tries shoving her feet into her boots, in a few long strides I’m beside her, cradling her face in my hand. “Hey. What just happened? You okay? Did I do something?”
She blinks once, her expression softening. “No, no, of course not. It isn’t anything like that. I just forgot about Boondoggle’s.”
“Boondoggle’s? The bar?”
She nods.
“I don’t follow.”
“The crew currently on the ISS is calling down today. I need to be there.” She bends down again, trying without much success to jam her bare foot into a boot. “Jules is going to kill me.”
“Wait.” I have to close my eyes to think, so I don’t just stare at her ass. “You have to go to a bar to talk to astronauts? And who is Jules?”
She seems to give up on her boots and straightens, lifting her arms to twist her hair into some sort of knot.
She must honestly not have a clue about what she’s doing. Between bending over sans panties and pushing her no-bra breasts out while fixing her hair, my mind keeps stalling.
“It’s something astronauts do sometimes to say thanks. They just completed a spacewalk a while ago, and though the results sucked, everything else went okay. NASA has a deal with Boondoggles where they can set up a video conference outside and everyone can gather and say hi to the crew and drink beer the astronauts paid for. Kind of like Face Timing from space. Or Skype.” She shrugs. “It’s a thing. It’s been happening for years.”
