“Bitch! No, you did not just drunk dial that man. It is almost four in the morning.” Donnie slapped his hand over his face, palming it for all he was worth and shaking his head.
Mary Allison looked at him pitifully as she ventured back under the covers. Too drunk to care how inappropriate her actions were, she had to know if what she was feeling earlier was a fluke—maybe she could write him off.
Even though it was late and he had downed a couple of beers, Holden couldn’t sleep. The events of the day played out in his head over and over again, forcing him to scrutinize every second he spent with Mary Allison, both good and bad, looking for some meaning. He raked his brain, attempting to remember what expressions she wore on her face and every word she spoke. She wanted me, and I blew it.
Tired of staying in bed for no reason, he threw off his covers before slipping out of bed. He crouched on the floor, his palms pushing against his gray carpet. He counted as he completed two sets of fifteen push-ups, hoping exercise might clear his mind. As he stared down at the floor, he kept imagining Mary Allison beneath him. Then thoughts of her with that other guy invaded his brain. His nostrils flared. Was he touching her? Did she make that cute noise he heard earlier for that guy too? Growling in anger, he punched the floor hard enough to bruise his knuckles. This isn’t helping.
He stood and headed to his bathroom. A search of the medicine cabinet yielded a small bottle of melatonin. He was about to fill a cup with water to take some when he heard Mary Allison’s ringtone. What the fuck? Did I really hear…did she call me? He glanced at the clock, noting the time was closer to dawn than midnight. She rarely calls or texts me even for work.
His heart banged against his chest so hard, the sensation reminded him of a sledgehammer slamming through a sheet of drywall. He walked over to his nightstand and took a look at his phone. She had texted one seemingly simple question: Who is John Crichton?
Holden stared at the screen while scratching his head. Why would she send me this at close to four in the morning? There had to be some significance not readily seen. Mary Allison only showed any real interest in him after she learned he was a Firefly fan so the inquiry had to be either some type of test or a prelude to a kiss-off. He grinned as he ran his hand through his hair. She called…there’s still a chance.
The message had so many implications. She had to at least be thinking of him which beat the hell out of indifference, and her evening with another man couldn’t be going so great. He smirked. If he was blowing her back out, she wouldn’t be texted me. He pumped his fist into the air. I just have to give a good answer.
He pondered the question. John Crichton was a character from the series Farscape, but that would be a lame answer anyone capable of using Google could give. He balled up his fist and rested his chin against his knuckles as he pulled bits and pieces of scenes from different episodes from his memory. I love that show—I got this…just have to take my time so she doesn’t think I’m an idiot poser.
The sheer number of possible answers was a huge problem because rattling them all off would look desperate and pathetic. The simplistic answer was John’s status as an astronaut. The whole show was predicated on his work with the Farscape project separating him from home, but Mary Allison would want something insightful rather than mundane. All of that was more Google info—he needed something deeper.
The heart of the show was the journey and his relationships, particularly with Aeryn, but saying he was Aeryn’s lover or D’Argo’s best friend wasn’t the essence of who John Crichton was.
Who would Crichton say he was? Ah! That was his answer. Holden couldn’t remember the whole line. Fuck…something about Buck Rogers, Kirk, and Arthur Dent—I remember being embarrassingly impressed with myself for recognizing all of the references when the character said the line. After quickly sending his return text, Holden hoped for the best.
Donnie went into Mary Allison’s sent texts to see how much damage she had done. “Who is John Crichton? What kind of bullshit is this?”
“If he knows and gives a good answer, not something he copied and pasted off Wikipedia, then he’s the real deal and I have to live in a shame spiral of misery. If he doesn’t, what I was feeling for him earlier was a fluke and I can let it all go.
“You have a missed call from earlier and a voice mail.” Donnie pulling up a message from the devil himself and played it on speaker.
Hearing Holden ramble out an apology for “zoning out” was even worse than not getting laid. Her nostrils flared as she frowned. “Ugh! Unsend…unsend!” She hid her face in her hands, wishing she could take back her stupid, drunken text. “This sucks!” Then, to add insult to injury, Holden sent a response.
Donnie read aloud: An astronaut but not like Kirk or Buck Rogers, more like Dorothy from Kansas. He scoffed and shook his head. “What such madness is this?”
She grabbed the phone and stared at the screen to make sure Donnie had read correctly. As she perused the words, her eyebrows drooped and her lips curved downward as tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She groaned as she flung the phone at the floor hard and then watched as it broke into pieces. “Shit, why couldn’t he have given a lame answer? I’ll never be able to face him!” She flipped
