Page 96 of Space Junk: Houston, We Have a Hottie
Those fucking glasses.
The pictures and video vanish to reveal a roundtable of women. “What you just saw was a video of NASA’s Darling, the newly appointed astronaut, Dr. Jackie Darling Lee, that has recently gone viral. She can be seen defending herself against a man, and not just any man, but Houston’s newly acquired shortstop, Brian Hampson. PR for the Astros released a statement that the team was looking into the incident, and that the Astros would not stand for any unbecoming behavior from their players,” one of the ladies says.
Another woman pipes up about how violence is out of control in professional sports.
And yet another praises Jackie’s knowledge of self-defense. “Such a remarkable woman.”
I shake my arm out, then wipe my hand across my shirt to dry up the remaining coffee.
“She is, you know,” Holt says.
“She is what?”
“Remarkable.”
I sink back down onto the sofa. “I know.”
“Then why aren’t you with her right now?”
“I don’t deserve her, man.”
“Flynn…”
I glance back at the TV, now showing footage of Brian leaving practice, his black eye partially covered by designer sunglasses. He smiles at the camera, ensuring them that the video has been blown out of proportion. My eyes narrowing, I push myself out of the chair. “That’s it. I’m heading into town.”
“Flynn, don’t.” Holt tries to block my path, but I move around him. “It’ll be worse for Jackie if you confront him again and they connect you to her and then the ballplayer’s black eye to you,” he calls out.
At the front door I lift my keys from the hook on the wall. “They won’t.” And they damn sure shouldn’t as I’d made sure my bribe to the building manager had included shutting off the garage’s video feed.
“You want to chance that? With Jackie starting astronaut training soon?”
“Fuck.” I don’t know NASA’s policy on idiot exes, which I guess I’m now a part of along with that dickhead Hampson. I curse again, not wanting to have anything in common with that fucker.
I loop my key ring back on the hook, too restless to go sit down again. “I guess I’ll just have to ride my other Mustang then.”
* * *
Jackie
I’ve made it. I think. Almost.
Okay, technically I’ve made it. The sign on the metal archway, between two lengths of fence, has the words West Ranch scrolled out of iron.
But just as I reach the gate, I stall.
Again.
This whole manual transmission thing is harder than I thought. I don’t even want to think about all the middle fingers waved in my direction or horns honked as I’d coasted in the slow lane on the highway. I let everything pass me, even sixteen wheelers, so I could keep the amount of shifting to a minimum. The upside, I hadn’t stalled all that much until I got off the interstate. The downside, it’s almost dark, the fifty-minute drive taking twice that amount of time.
I push down on the clutch and brake to start the ignition again. Apparently, I can direct astronauts flying thousands of miles away in space on how to hotwire billions of dollars’ worth of complex equipment while they wear the equivalent of snow gloves, but I can’t shift and clutch fast enough not to stall out on a dirt road.
Awesome.
I get the car moving again, the Corvette not liking the bumpy ride. I fight to keep it in first and avoid any obvious holes or ruts. Those big pickup trucks everyone in Texas drives make a lot more sense now.
Between the snail speed and the length of the driveway, it takes me a while to reach the house. There’s a lot of land.
I pass a few outbuildings along the way and see a huge barn behind the white clapboard house. I say house, but really, it’s a mansion. The style is that of an old farm house complete with a wraparound porch and Queen Anne posts. Unpretentious in every way except when it comes to size. Three stories and multiple columns of windows.
