Page 89 of Space Junk: Houston, We Have a Hottie
That one word is a punch to my gut and it takes me a moment to breathe normally again.
“You’re my brother. And I love you,” Rose says, still looking at the screen. “But sometimes you can be such a fucking dick.”
I say nothing. WhatcanI say? I’m such a fucking dick.
Twenty-Five
Debrief
Jackie
“Holy Mercury!”Rose whoops and hollers, laughing at my expense. “I mean really, girl,that’swhat you say after you find out you’re going to be an astronaut?” More laughter.
Rose and I are sitting at the bar in Big Texas, on either side of the corner, while Trish serves drinks from the other side. Rose has an honest-to-God newspaper laid out on the bar in front of us. And not just any paper, the paper with the headline “Holy Mercury” splashed on the front page in big old letters.
Journalists are killing me right now. Just killing me.
And I’m not too fond of McAllister, who gave them that quote. I’d been prepared to take that to the grave. Stupid Astronaut Chief.
“I didn’t mean to say it out loud, you know,” I mumble around my straw. Rose just keeps laughing.
“It’s okay, sugar. It just seems to have endeared you more to the public.” Trish pats my arm like a child. Seeing as how she is not tall by any means, the fact that she can so easily reach me means she has to be rocking some seriously high heels in order to see and serve over the bar. I’m grateful for my height, as I don’t really need heels.
The wide heels of my cowboy boots seem to be all I can handle. And as much as I love them, the memory of Flynn kneeling before me to strip the boots off before we made love made me toss them into the back corner of my closet.
So I’m wearing a new set of Chucks to the bar tonight. Rose gave them to me. I don’t know how she managed it, but she’d gotten someone to decorate over the Converse patch on the side with a sequined NASA symbol. I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to use the NASA symbol like this without permission, but they’re too freaking cool for me not to wear them.
Trish has just served me my third drink, so I’m feeling slightly more awesome than I usually feel about myself. I think drinking may have something in common with G-Force. After the initial shock to the system everything starts to feel pretty good.
I’m back in jeans too. Rose argued that jeans were not for going out unless they had rhinestones, but the look I gave her must have shut her up, ‘cause she didn’t push me. Especially when I agreed to let her burn my old jeans in favor of me wearing the new fitted ones she bought me. I may be wearing shoes with rhinestones, but I draw the line at a bedazzled butt.
Trish finishes filling drink orders and props an elbow up on her side of the bar.
“What’d I miss?” she asks.
“I think it is time for a debriefing,” I declare, drink in hand.
Trish leans forward to hear. “A what?”
“Is that when you pants someone?” Rose asks.
She’s stone cold serious, and I love her for it.
“No, you nut,” I say, shoving her shoulder. “It’s after an operation or mission has been conducted. The people involved sit down and discuss the purpose of the experiment and the positives or negatives of its outcome.”
“Wait, what experiment?” Rose asks. “Was I drunk when this happened? The last time I experimented when drunk I nearly woke up married to a woman.” She smiles and sighs. “Ahh, Vegas.”
Trish’s mouth falls open. “Oh. My. Gosh. No, just no.”
Rose and I laugh at Trish’s shocked expression.
“Wait!” Trish says, recovering and waving her perfectly manicured hands. “I remember—Operation Social Life.” She winks at me. “Always knew you’d be my most interesting customer, sugar.”
Rose straightens on her bar stool. “How did I not know this?”
“Probably because you were crumpled on the floor drunk,” Trish replies with a smirk.
“Oh. Yes. Well. That makes sense.” Rose stops pouting and salutes us with her drink.
