“Why are you still here?”
“I’m working on the holiday schedule.” I glance up at him. “I was going to give you Christmas, since you worked Thanksgiving, but after all this glitter talk…”
He raises his hands in surrender. “Hey man, you do that at your own peril. You’ll have Ana to deal with.”
“God, no.” Ana may be slight, but you do not want to get on her bad side. And seeing as she and Becca got along at the picnic, I need her on my side.
“Speaking of my stripper loving wife—”
“If she heard you say that you’d be forced into celibacy for the foreseeable future.”
Rich pales and glances around, like Ana is going to somehow jump out and catch him. “I meant, my adoring, sexy, wonderful wife.”
That gets me chuckling.
“Anyway, Ana said your girl is great. Wants to go out on a double date.” He points at me. “You haven’t screwed it up yet, have you?”
“No, I have not screwed up yet.” I think of Becca’s face when Chloe came up to our table at lunch but shake it off. We spent the remainder of that day lazing about naked in my bed and this week with lots more phone dates with inappropriate storage room use thrown in the middle.
“But by that grin on your face, I take it you and the doctor are doing well.”
My grin just gets bigger. “Yeah. We are.”
“Good. You deserve it. I know we give you shit, but it’s high time you found someone. Even if she’s older.”
My fingers pause over the keyboard. “What do you mean ‘even if’?”
He frowns, shrugging. “Nothing. I honestly don’t know why I said that. I guess I just assumed you’d be thinking about it. It is unusual for the girl to be older. Society. The patriarch. You know. All that shit.”
“Fuck man. The patriarch? Did Ana explain that to you?”
He rubs his hand over his face. “Damned if I know. That woman drives me crazy.”
I scoff, thinking of the stripper fantasy he just fulfilled for his wife. “Please, you love it.”
It’s Rich’s turn to grin, the glitter on his neck catching the light. “Yeah. I do.”
He salutes and heads back to the bunks to drop his bags. But his words stick with me after he’s gone. I had thought Becca and I were solid, even after the Chloe thing, but I still haven’t come clean about my age. I kept telling myself the timing wasn’t right, and that I didn’t want to do it over the phone, which has been our main source of communication this past week, not counting the Neutral Buoyancy Lab.
And though I think of her as my girlfriend, I’m not an idiot. I did make her agree to that under naked time duress. Maybe she didn’t really want to.
Fuck. I rub my hand down my face, suddenly feeling my exhaustion. I’ll tell her my age after the shoot. We’ll laugh about it. Have sex. And set up a double date with Rich and Ana. It’ll be fine.
My phone beeps just as I finish the schedule.
Doc: Heading to NBL. See you at Rocket Park later?
I type out Affirmative, which amuses her when I speak and text like the people at NASA talk. I’m proven right when she responds with an eyeroll emoji and a See you then and a kiss emoji.
Smiling, I pocket my phone, determined to get a few hours of shut-eye before the photo shoot.
Ten
Reflash Watch
Rebecca
I’m exhausted. But also weirdly energized. It’s been a tough week. Not only because of the double time I’ve been working in both MC and in the NBL, but because I haven’t seen Ryan.
It’s weird how in just a few days I can miss him so much.
“Come on, girl, let’s go get changed.” Jules puts an arm around my shoulder and her other around Jackie, who was monitoring the spacewalk training.
“You guys did good. The timing was almost perfect. Maybe I should recalculate the order of operations by—”
“Jackie,” Jules cuts in. “It went well. We don’t have time for another run-through before launch anyway. We still had more than two hours of oxygen left when we were finished. The timing was fine.”
Jackie slides her thick framed glasses up her nose and frowns. “You sure?”
“Positive.” Jules turns to me. “Right, Doc?”
“Hey, I’m not actually going on the space walk. I’m just here to get a feel for the effects on the body for when you actually do.” I lean forward to catch Jackie’s eye. “But if Jules says it’s good, it’s good.”
One hard nod in agreement is all I get before Jackie gets a faraway look in her eyes. As a genuine genius, her mind is always working at a hundred miles a minute.
It must be exhausting.
“How’s the calendar going?” Jules lets us go once we get inside the locker room.
A wide smile lifts my lips. “Great.” I grab my phone from out of my jeans inside my locker. “Check these out.”
Opening my email, I scroll through the pictures the photographer, Mark, sent me. Mark is a professor at the University of Houston, and he’s agreed not to charge me as long as he can bring his students to help and get field experience. Everyone wins.
I turn the phone toward Jules, and she grabs it “Holy shit. There is this much hotness just down the road at the station?” Her pointer finger flicks through the images. “Don’t see your boy, though.”
“His shoot is the last one. It’s today at Rocket Park.”
“Cool,” Jackie says, stepping out of her jumpsuit. “How did you get that organized?”
“Called in a favor at Public Relations. They said they’d mark off the area for an hour so we could take pictures.”
Rocket Park is a public park where the Saturn V, one of the most famous rockets with nine trips to space, six of those to the moon, is stored in a football length warehouse. It’s thirty stories tall, and as it’s lying on its side, you can stand at the bottom of the three rocket boosters, each over twenty feet wide. I thought it would be a cool place to have one of the calendar pictures taken and I was lucky enough that Emily in public relations thinks she owes me a favor.
She doesn’t. All I did was make a call so that her son, who broke his leg in a pee-wee football game, could be seen by one of the top orthopedic surgeons. But I’d do that for any of my friends. But if she thinks she owes me a favor and that favor means a cool picture for the calendar that will help out the Space City Animal Shelter, I’ll take it.
Along with missing Ryan, I’ve missed volunteering at the shelter this week. The last time I went was after my mother’s phone call. I spent the rest of that evening at the shelter holding animals.
I don’t care if you’re a dog, cat, bird or bunny person, or even a peacock person, just the act of holding an animal does wonders for your health. Decreased levels of blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides.
I even recommend pets to astronauts and their families. During launch and descent, the times when astronauts are the most vulnerable to accidents or equipment failure, is especially stressful on families. Holding and cuddling a pet helps to lower anxiety levels.
Probably why I felt so much better after talking to my mother. I cuddled the animals hard that day.
“Whoa.” Jules eyes go wide and she flashes the screen to Jackie.
“Holy Mercury.” Jackie’s normally unfocused eyes laser in on my phone.
“What’s whoa? What is it?”
Jules, who’s still sorting through the calendar pictures like a perv, turns the screen toward me.
Rich, glittering like a teen-age vampire heartthrob, is holding little Penelope under a disco light, while various other dogs wear party hats in front of a background of streamers. And is that… I lean closer, yes, that is a disco ball overhead.
This explains the odd text I got from Ana last night, thanking me for the glitter.
“That beefcake sparkles.” Jules whistles low.
Jackie nods, causing her to push up her glasses again. “Like the Milky Way.”
Snorting, I step out of m
y jumpsuit and pull my shirt over my head. “You can all calm down, you pervs. That’s Rich. And he’s married to a very nice lady named Ana.”
Jules hands me back the phone, muttering something about spank bank and starts getting dressed.
When we exit the locker room, we’re met by Bodie.
“Can I interest you ladies in a late lunch?”
“Sorry, second string, I’ve got to see a man about some sex.”
“Jesus, Jules. There are some things your crew doesn’t need to know.”
“Don’t be jealous.”
Ignoring her, Bodie looks to Jackie and me. “How about you ladies?”
Jackie turns bright red and scurries away mumbling, I kid you not, about the space time continuum.
“Sorry, Bodie, this lady’s got a date.”
“What? The doc’s got a man, huh?”
“Oh yeah, he’s a hottie. Let me show you.” Jules opens her phone.
“Wait. How the hell do you have a picture of Ryan?”
“I took a picture of him. Duh.”
“When did you take a picture?”
“Day of the fire. I made one of the nurses give me her phone, took a picture and sent it to myself.” She finds the photo she’s looking for and flashes it to Bodie. “I’m awesome like that.”
“Or creepy,” Bodies says before looking at her phone. “Whoa, Doc. Nice one. Caught yourself a young one.”
“He’s only a year or two younger than me.”
He frowns and looks at the photo. He and Jules share a glance that sets off alarm bells.
“What?”
Bodie shakes his head and pushes the phone back at Jules. “Nothing. You have fun on your date. I guess I’ll go see if any of the co-ops are hungry.” He waggles his eyebrows.
Jules scoffs. “You should know better than to poison your own water cooler.”
Bodie blinks. “What does that even mean?”
“Ugh. Nothing. Except that you’re a hooker.” Jules stomps off in her motorcycle boots.
Bodie looks after her, eyebrows raised. “Can you believe I have to be stuck in a tin can in space with her for six months?”
I smirk. “It won’t be boring.”
He runs a hand over his long brown hair. “At least if we finally snap at each other, you’ll be down here talking us through how to tie a tourniquet in space.”
I give him jazz hands. “Yay me.”
He laughs and we both walk toward the parking lot. When I reach my car, he stops me before I get in.
“Have fun on your date, Doc. Don’t forget to get him home before curfew.”
“Shut it, Bodie. Or I’ll replace your sleeping aids with caffeine pills on board.”
Bodie backs up, arms raised. One of the hardest things for an astronaut is to get on a regular sleep schedule. There’s no night or day in space. “Okay, okay. I take it back.”
I let him go with a smile and wave, but the smile falters.
Ryan
“Ryan, can you look this way?”
I turn toward Mark, the photographer, who shakes his head.
“No, no. Just your head. Keep your torso facing the same way.”
I turn back, then twist my neck. How this isn’t going to look like I’m a contortionist, I don’t know. But Mark seems pretty confident.
“Yes, that’s it. That’s the angle.”
I want to look around for Becca, but I’m afraid I won’t remember how Mark wanted me to stand if I move. At least no one’s oiled me up.
“Oil!”
Fuck.
There’s a scuffle to my left, but I stay still.
“Let’s be professionals, guys.” Mark directs his comments to where the scuffle started. “Amanda, you do it.”
There’s some mumbling, and a small cheer, but I keep my eyes straight forward.
Rich may have been right about the body oil, but at least I don’t have Christmas lights hung over my dick. Instead, the lights are wrapped over my shoulders like a feather boa. There are huge boxes wrapped in shiny Christmas paper and yes, I’m wearing a Santa hat.
At least I got to keep my fireman coat on. Most of the guys in the calendar are just in their trousers and suspenders. But Mark said the lights would show up better against the blue of my coat. Whatever. At least I’m not cold.
It may be Texas, but it’s December, early evening, and we’re in a huge metal warehouse that isn’t heated. I’ll take the coat.
The shelter volunteers are in the corner with two bunnies and a new addition to the shelter, a Dalmation-pit bull mix. Animal control found her on the side of the interstate. She was lucky she didn’t get hit. The shelter folks told me that pits have a hard time getting adopted because people think they’re aggressive. But that’s just a load of crap. Any dog can be aggressive if that’s how it’s been trained.
The second I crouched down to her, she rolled over and presented her belly for scratches. She doesn’t have a name yet, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t come up with a few myself while I’ve been poked and prodded and arranged.
Finally, a girl walks up to me holding a pump bottle of what has to be body oil.
“Hi. I’m Amanda.” She wags the bottle. “You ready?”
I’m secretly relieved it’s Amanda who Mark sent over. The other girls have been acting like predators, circling and appraising me. And I swear, their hands lingered longer than necessary while they were draping me in Christmas lights.
Amanda’s been nothing but business from the start.
“I guess.” I try giving her a winning smile. “Or I could just do it myself?”
“You could, but then you have to hold the animals.” She points to the corner where the bunnies are nuzzling the shelter volunteers and the mutt is gnawing on a chew toy I brought. “You’d get oil on their fur.”
I sigh, giving up. “Good point.”
Amanda laughs lightly. “I’ll make it quick. And I won’t use too much. We just need the column of skin exposed between the jacket. The oil will make your muscles catch the light and look more defined.”
“I feel like a Christmas turkey all trussed and dressed for the holiday.”
“What we do for love, huh?”
“Love?”
Her brow furrows and she gestures toward the animals again. “Yeah, love. You love animals, right? Isn’t that why the station is doing the calendar? For the Space City Animal shelter?”
“Oh.” I shake off the image of Becca’s sparkling brown eyes and the wide smile on her face as dogs jump around her legs at the shelter. “Yeah. The love of animals. Totally.”
She gives me an odd look but gets back to work. “I hope you don’t mind, but when this is over, could I talk to you?”
Damn it. I thought Amanda would be the safe one. I didn’t want to have to turn anyone down. She doesn’t look at me when she asks, focusing on pumping oil into her cupped palm so I can’t read her expression and get an idea on how to proceed.
“Uh, I have a girlfriend.”
She looks up at me blinking, her brow still knit. “Good for you?” Her palm flattens on my chest, and the awkwardness ratchets up a few degrees.
“I was just saying, because, you know, it wouldn’t be right to—”
“Oh my God. Stop.” She finishes wiping down my abs, her shoulders shaking.
Is she crying? “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
She looks ups, her face scrunched in laughter. “You thought I was asking you out?” She plants one hand on my chest again, this time to hold herself up as she doubles in laughter.
I feel like such an idiot.
Her laughter dies down to a light chuckle. “Look, man, you’re hot. I’ll give you that. But that isn’t why I wanted to talk. My brother is thinking about becoming a firefighter and I’m worried about him. I was hoping you could reassure me, tell me what it’s like, make me not freak out the next time he brings it up.”
“I’m not going to lie. I feel like an asshole. I’m sorry.”
“Barbies?” Amanda has brown hair and the other two girls have blond, but I’m not sure how that makes them Barbies.
She shrugs. “It probably isn’t very feminist of me, but they piss me off. They signed on for this course ‘cause they thought it was an easy A. Not because they actually care about photography.” She wipes her hands on the towel tucked into the waist of her jeans. “I’ve literally had to sit through an hour of listening to them debate the merits of using a flat iron or a curling iron to curl their hair.” She gives me an exasperated look. “I didn’t even know you could curl your hair with a flat iron. I mean it’s a flat iron.”
Mark steps up to us. “Okay, Amanda. Let’s get the animals in position so we can get this shot.”
She salutes her teacher. “Yes, sir.”
She’s about to step away when I place my arm on her shoulder. “Hey. Honestly, sorry about earlier. I feel like an idiot.”
“Hey, at least you’re a hot idiot.”
I feel my face heat. “Uh, thanks. And if you want to know more about what it’s like to be a firefighter, we can definitely talk. I could talk to your brother too.”
She gives me a thumbs up. “Thanks, man.”
Then the shelter volunteers are there with bunnies, placing one in each arm. The “Barbies” come over and arrange the lights so they drop around the animals. Thankfully, they don’t talk to me or let their hands linger again.
It takes all I have not to laugh outright and mess up my pose when they bring the dog in. They have her wearing elf shoes. She keeps high-stepping as she walks, like she’s trying to shake them off.
“Oh you poor girl, what have they done to you?”
“It’ll only be for a minute, sweet girl,” one of the volunteers says, and then proceeds to up the shame level by fitting the mutt with an elf hat to match.
Space Age- Houston, Prepare for Launch Page 8
