Are You There, Karma? It’s Me, Jane.
A laugh out loud romantic comedy
Christine Zolendz
Christine Zolendz
Are You There, Karma? It’s Me Jane.
Sensible women do not believe in love at first sight. And Jane Nash is one sensible woman. But when her eyes--and lips-- land on a complete stranger at a baseball game, Jane feels like she's hit a grand slam as the crowd roars its approval. However, in the chaos of the stadium, she loses Mr. Perfect in a throng of fans and foam fingers.
Determined to find him again, Jane sets off on a mission for that baseball fan of her dreams. Suddenly, she gets a crash course in Karma, learning quickly that Karma's one tricky wench. But Karma has plans of her own--and Jane is about to get everything she's ever wanted--and nothing she ever expected.
Book One
Book One
of the Awkward Adventures
of Jane Nash Series
Copyright © 2019 by Christine Zolendz
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Book Credits:
Blurb written by The Blurb Bitch
Edited by Contagious Edits
Cover Stock Photo by Roman Samborskyi - Ukraine
123rf Extended License
Cover Designer Dark Road Designs (That’s me!)
Created with Vellum
For Laughs
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
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Chapter 1
Some people say intsa love can strike anywhere. At any time.
A sensible woman doesn’t believe in such things.
No. A sensible woman believes love at first sight carries roughly the same stigma as licking your own elbow. It’s impossible, it just does not happen. It’s only one of those things that happen in the meet-cute scenes of romantic comedies, or written within the first three chapters of a romance novel. Sensible women will never accept the credibility of it. And a sensible, reasonable woman would not think it fitting to shove three fully loaded stadium stand hot dogs in her mouth in the same vicinity as all her male colleagues either.
It seems I am not in any way a sensible woman.
I don’t even have the sense to pay attention to anything around me. Well, just my hotdog, that’s about it. Currently, I’m licking the remains of what’s left of its deliciousness from my fingers and contemplating how horribly I’ll be teased tomorrow if I go for my fourth one.
Maybe I should just pretend I have to leave and get another dirty water dog on the way out. These guys won’t even notice I’m gone. No, not true. Dex would, that knuckle-dragger. He wouldn’t know exactly when I left, but I’d put money on the fact he knows precisely how many hotdogs I just scarfed down and is going to bring it up in the most perfectly embarrassing moment in the near future—like at an important work meeting. Ugh, I despise him.
And I hate having to sit here next to him.
I mean, I didn’t even want to come. I literally said it ten times in the office today. My boss, editor-in-chief at UPCLOSE magazine, the unapologetic tyrant Gail Talbert, told me if I didn’t go, my next article would be titled UPCLOSE and Personal: Easy Fixes for Freaky Vagina Issues. So, I wasn’t in the best of moods when we got here. And everyone has just been ignoring me since.
Typical day for me, actually.
I pull out my phone and snap a picture for a quick post on social media. Gail will kill me if I don’t; she wants us constantly marketing the magazine.
We’re at Citi Field, the guys are on their sixth round of beers, and there’s a perfect blue sky above us. I snap a few more pictures and post them over all social media outlets and add the caption Major League Fun, #HotDogsAndBalls. We occupy the entire section, but the group of seats to my right that were empty two hotdogs ago are now being filled with guys trying to get closer to the field. It’s a pretty big game.
I respect their boldness.
Honestly, it’s one of the first big games of the year and the team I’m supposed to be rooting for is winning. I think.
Suddenly the crowded stadium goes wild. Something is happening that’s making everyone cheer. My eyes catch on the giant screen across the field from us, the one that’s supposed to show replays of the game. Instead, it was giving us a pornographic rendition of a couple actually making it to second base. The crowd roars.
It’s the Kiss Cam.
The scene cuts to another couple getting closer to home base. The crowd stomps their feet now and I swear the entire stadium shakes. Even the team mascot gets involved and does a perverted little dance next to the couple.
The next shot is a proposal with a ring that blinds half of the crowd, and a cheer deafens the rest of us.
I sit on the edge of my seat watching. It’s porn and romance.
“Oh damn, look at her face, this isn’t going to end well,” a deep voice next to me says.
The guy is right. The woman on the screen’s face turns bright red. She looks somewhere in between appalled and stunned stupid, and a lot like she’s about to vomit. She covers her mouth with her hand and dry heaves. The camera zooms in. The man next to me is loudly talking to his friends. “I think she’s about to throw up, definitely not a good sign. Jesus, I’d hate to be that guy.”
Jeez, he’s totally right. Oh my God, I can’t look anymore. Why are they still zooming in on the poor girl’s face? And how could she say no to him in front of everybody?
The camera zooms in even closer, and I grip onto the armrests of my seat, waiting for the outcome. But my armrest moves and grunts out a slur of swear words that any sensible woman would try not to repeat. Startled, I turn and look at the man whose arm my nails are digging into.
“Oh God, I’m so sor—” I lose all train of thought and normal speech abilities.
He turns his head to face me and does this weird sort of double take and blinks a few times.
Dark hair. Hazel eyes. The bristle of a five o’clock shadow growing in.
I can’t look away.
I would literally rather die than stop my eyeballs from feasting on this perfect specimen of man. He’s beautiful. Utterly, breathtakingly gorgeous. But there’s more. It’s the way he’s looking back at me with huge rounded eyes and a crooked knowing smile. Like both of us were just tackled by Cupid himself. The rest of the world just fades away.
How many times have I heard some crazy story like this? Love at first sight. It feels exactly how they say it does. My heart pounds, my knees tingle and go weak, but I’m calm, open, and everything I ever felt missing from my life seems
to fall into place.
Some sort of metaphorical bolt of lightning crackles between us, splitting us open and pouring us into each other. Like his very soul jumps out of his body and settles itself around mine, and he’s never going to let me go. It’s a realization you don’t belong to yourself any longer, you’re now a part of this other person, this integral part, and you can’t break away from it. You can’t breathe without it. It’s too powerful, too profound. It’s intense and breathtaking, it’s fucking soul-wrenching.
I can’t breathe.
We sit there like that, staring right into each other’s eyes as the crowd around us screams and shouts for the next couple on the Kiss Cam. I want to turn my head and look at the screen; I want to fight this pull he has on me. But I can’t seem to tear myself away from those eyes. His lips move as if he wants to say something to me then thinks better of it. His cheeks flush with color and right there, right then, I know he’s feeling whatever strange magic I’m feeling.
A swarm of butterflies explodes in my chest and drops low in my stomach. I’m instantly queasy, lightheaded. I feel like I know him, he’s the one I’ve waited for all my life, and at long last he’s here and I can finally exhale.
It comes out as a sigh.
His jaw tightens. One of his buddies pounds him on the shoulder, trying to turn his attention away at something happening on the field. Who cares about baseball at a time like this? This can’t be stopped; it’s a high-speed freight train barreling toward us. Somehow the crowd seems even louder than before.
Please, please don’t look away. Ignore your friend.
Dex the mouth-breather, who sits on the other side of me, shouts out my name and shoves me on the shoulder. I will forever loathe him. I try smacking his hand away behind me but he just continues to harass me, like always. Doesn’t he see I’m having a moment? Isn’t the entire universe watching me and this perfect stranger fall hard and fast into each other? The stadium spins wildly around me.
Dex jostles me harder. Mr. Perfect’s friend shakes him just as hard.
I will kill them both.
Mr. Perfect and I painfully tear our eyes off each other and instantly my stomach drops. Up on the Kiss Cam, our faces are framed in a bright red beating heart. Mr. Perfect and me! My mouth hangs open in high definition, cheeks blazing, and my hair sticks up in all crazy ways from the cool breeze. Our stunned faces float in the middle of hundreds of red and white flashing hearts and streamers.
All around us the crowd starts chanting, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
The seats rumble beneath us.
Mr. Perfect and I look back at each other at the same time. Instantly I want to apologize and run away. Someone this gorgeous probably has a girlfriend, or a wife, or whatever it is that perfect people have in their perfect lives, and then suddenly he’s leaning in closer and his eyes are more green than hazel and I want to have all his beautiful babies. I can’t control my body or the situation. I don’t even have time to consider any options before his hand cups my cheek, sending bolts of lightning down the center of my body, and exploding my vag into millions of pieces of fairy dust. His lips brush against mine, slightly open and warm and soft. The smell of his cologne hugs me, melting me into the stadium chairs.
The crowd detonates and we’re in the epicenter of a hurricane.
His lips steal my breath and he groans softly, low in his throat, and pulls me harder against him. His tongue slips inside my mouth and my body throbs for him. Goose bumps burst up and surge across my arms. Every inch of my skin aches in hot, pounding pulses.
My fingers reach up and grip his hair. We can’t get close enough, the damn armrest is still in our way. I lose myself to his kiss, there’s no going back from this. I know it in my very soul. I belong with him, this stranger. There’s an entire world opening up with that kiss, a world with a future I had no idea was possible a few minutes before his eyes and lips touched mine.
We kiss a lifetime of kisses. It feels like forever has passed and yet no time at all.
Mr. Perfect leans back and a slow crooked smile spreads across his beautiful mouth, and I’m smiling too, thinking—no, knowing—that was the single most best kiss in my entire life.
“Wow,” he whispers. “That was—”
The crowd jumps up around us. People tangle up around us and then to my absolute horror, the other team’s furry mascot shoves in between us, pretending to dry hump my chair.
This can’t be happening. I want to know what he was going to say. No, I need to know.
The giant chicken-looking monster grabs me by the shoulder and devours my head in its beak. It’s suffocating. The crowd’s screams are muffled by the costume. I push him off me and fall back into a seat. I don’t even know if this is the same one I was sitting in before. I try to catch my breath. The dumb bird dances off and climbs over railings to get to the next Kiss Cam couple.
I turn back to introduce myself to Mr. Perfect, my future husband.
But his seat is empty, and all his friends are gone.
Chapter 2
“Are you sure no one recorded that kiss?” There’s a click-click-clicking of Julia’s nails against the counter between our workstations. It’s only the hundredth time she’s asked me. My dearest friend is taking finding my Mr. Perfect as one of her personal life goals. She’s even stooped to carrying around a little notepad with The Kiss That Got Away scrawled in red ink across the front cover. I’ve only been able to get a quick peek about a total social media manhunt. That made me slam it shut fast, a little bit terrified.
“I told you, Jules. I asked everyone. And yes, before you ask, I already called the stadium to see if they have it recorded.” Four times.
“And?” she asks with an overenthusiastic glint to her eyes.
“They don’t.” Hello wound, meet salt.
“How are we supposed to find him then?” Julia plops down onto her work chair in a graceful flourish of adorable pouty whines, and stares at me expectantly. “Can you imagine if he just saunters in here, like right now?”
I envy her romantic imagination. But I thought up that particular fantasy two days ago, and the daydream was so steamy I had to squeeze my thighs together until I got home. I ran out of batteries that night.
She giggles. “Look, seriously. It’s him.”
I sigh loudly and continue staring at the blank screen on my computer.
Julia sulks and gripes, and keeps pointing toward the open-windowed conference room.
I give in, indulging in her teasing. The office is crowded, but I notice right away who she’s pointing to because he’s extremely good-looking, just not as good-looking as Mr. Perfect. It’s also the intern. He waves at Julia eagerly and once again I’m still searching, destined to forever wonder the first name of my Mr. Perfect and if he wears boxers or briefs. The intern makes his way over to us.
For the last four weeks since the Kiss Cam incident, finding out who Mr. Perfect is has become a tiny bit more than a habit, sort of more like something bordering on obsessive behavior. Everywhere we go, Julia has taken it upon herself to be the head investigator in search for the love of my life.
Julia calls him the Kiss Thief. Although, honestly, he stole no kisses, I willingly gave him my lips. I would have given him a whole hell of a lot more if he stayed in that seat and asked for my number. I would have offered my address and all the first and middle names of our future children. Because that shit was completely ironed out in my head as soon as his tongue tangled with mine.
I even decorated the nurseries in the fantasy.
Julia seems to be the one more inclined to think up all the different ways of actually finding him. I, on the other hand, silently pray for some sort of divine intervention or whatever that tangible thing was that brought us to sit next to each other the day of the game. The serendipity that entwined our souls together. God, I sound like a cheeseball. But, here’s the thing, I felt it. It was real and life-altering, and I’m terrified if I don’t see Mr. Perfect again, I will
never feel the way I did that day with anyone else for the rest of my life.
On the outside, I brush it off like it isn’t a big thing, but inside, I’m jonesing like an addict for another one of his kisses.
I hadn’t told Julia, but I spent the day after the game in Macy’s on Fifth Avenue sniffing all the men’s cologne trying to find what scent he was wearing the day of the game. Of course it was called Sexual. The woman behind the counter whooped and high-fived me when we found it. I now own a two-hundred-dollar bottle of freaking perfume for a man I probably will never see again.
I sniff at it every night before bed.
“God, I wish I was at the game with you so I could have seen it. We could have run after him and tag teamed his ass.”
“Me too,” I lie. It’s not that I wouldn’t have wanted Julia there to help tag team his ass, it’s just that if she were there, I’m not sure Mr. Perfect would have given me that look, or rather noticed me at all. Julia herself is Ms. Perfect to many a man.
Honestly. I’ve heard them say it.
We need a subject change, pronto. I don’t want any of my many insecurities creeping up on this conversation. The last article I wrote discussed the relationship between worrying over your insecurities and the premature aging of your skin.
“But,” I manage a sexy whisper without creasing my lips, “then you would have missed going out with your new boyfriend.” She’s been spending a ton of time with the new guy at work from the art department. I hear he is quite gorgeous.
Are You There, Karma? It’s Me, Jane.: A laugh out loud romantic comedy Page 1