Page 5 of Space Crush
Damn, she’s cute.
“Right. Left. Right.” Her feet move accordingly, and I follow.
Moving in tandem, we manage to make it halfway across the lot before another problem arises.
This one mine.
With my nose full of lemons and my arms full of Kaley, my body starts reacting to what my brain already registered—between her torn pants and non-existent underwear, with each step, I’m rubbing against her with only my boxer briefs and a single layer of denim between us.
Which has me thinking of the last time she and I were plastered this close together, though that time we were face to face and?—
“Stop.”
“What’s wrong?” Kaley’s ponytail whips me across the face as she turns one way and then another, searching for a threat.
“This isn’t working.” I attempt to ease back, but she clutches my arms tighter, grinding her ass against me.
Contact.
Kaley stills. “Oh.”
We’re quiet for a moment, Kaley probably questioning her life choices, me reciting the periodic table in hopes of quelling the chemical reaction happening in my pants.
And then salvation appears in all its carbon fiber glory.
Lifting an arm, I stick two fingers in my mouth and whistle, the sound as piercing as Kaley’s nails, which she’s dug into the arm still wrapped around her midsection.
Wincing, I wave at astronaut Vance Bodaway, aka Bodie, driving the Lunar Terrain Vehicle out from Building Nine. “You trust me, right?”
If possible, Kaley’s nails dig deeper as the LTV changes direction and heads our way. “Not in the slightest.”
“Cool.” Hurtful, but not unexpected, given the state of things.
The few minutes it takes the LTV prototype—one I helped build—to reach us thanks to its top speed of nine miles an hour are excruciatingly long.
Bodie’s wife, Rose, sits beside him wearing a bedazzled pink astronaut jumpsuit, despite the fact that she isn’t, in fact, an astronaut. Looking like a beauty queen on parade, she waves vigorously as they approach. “Hi, y’all!”
If she takes notes of how uncomfortably close Kaley and I are standing, or our pained expressions, she doesn’t show it.
Kaley manages a weak wave in return, relieving my forearm from her death grip.
“What’s up, Mitchell?” Bodie, who, from his expression,hastaken in how absurd Kayley and I look, pulls the rover to a stop alongside us. “Everything okay?"
No. It is not okay.
But considering I’d rather not embarrass Kaley by explaining about her pants ripping or myself by stepping back from Kaley and flaunting my ill-timed hard-on, I stay where I am and go with “We need a ride.”
Bodie laughs. “To where?”
“My office.”
His smile dims as he twists in his seat to look twenty yards over to Building Ten, also known as NASA’s playground, the place where all the cool stuff like SAFER jet pack components and lunar terrain vehicle prototypes are made. Taking in the short distance, he turns back to me looking as confused as Kaley had been when I explained my ball pit escape plan. “Um, okay.” He lifts his chin, gesturing for us to board. “Climb on up.”
“Yeah…” I scan the small, two-seater rover. “No.”
With Bodie and Rose sitting, Kaley and I would have to stand on the metal-grate running board while holding on to the exposed overhead roll cage like someone hanging off the side of a dune buggy.
Not the best way to keep from flashing NASA’s Youth at Work attendees.
