Are You There, Karma? It’s Me, Jane.: A laugh out loud romantic comedy

by Zolendz, Christine

  Dex rubs the back of his neck.

  “Oh, really?” Jared says, elbowing Heath. “So, what is a perfect kiss? I don’t think I’ve ever had one. Are you some sort of an expect? And are you the least bit gay?” Jared leans his chin on his steepled hands, waiting for Dex’s answer.

  Dex chuckles and shakes his head. I thought he’d be some asshole homophobe and freak out on Jared, but he doesn’t. He actually winks at him.

  “I don’t know if I’ve had a perfect kiss either, come to think of it.” Silvia’s words are mushing together too.

  “Oh come on, now,” Julia says, eyes twinkling. “Haven’t you ever lost yourself in a kiss that was so romantic you couldn’t remember where you were?”

  I don’t like this conversation either, so I push back from the table and walk into the kitchen pretending to get more wine. I spill what I have left into the sink and try to breathe. I know exactly what a perfect kiss feels like.

  “Are there really any bad kisses, though?” Heath’s voice asks.

  Both girls laugh and squeal yes in unison. I rummage through Julia’s refrigerator to find a bottle of soda and pour some into my wine glass. Fuck it, no one will notice. And if they do, it’s none of their damn business if I don’t partake in any more alcohol. To them I seem to be just the goody-two-shoes girl who made a few mistakes. I need to keep my wits before I say something to further mortify myself.

  “Bad breath fucks up a kiss in the worst way.”

  I walk back into the dining room because I couldn’t figure out whose voice it was. Henry has his eyes open now and is tearing into his plate of chicken. It must have been him who said it.

  “Ugh, how about those full wet, salvia dripping down your chin kisses?” Nate laughs.

  “So, what makes a perfect kiss?” Dex asks. I wouldn’t be surprised if a pen appeared in his hand and he started writing his article right here.

  “Consent, first and foremost. Oh, and passion and sexual tension,” Silvia explains.

  Julia eyes me and winks. “I think public kisses are the best. Those spontaneous surprise ones you don’t see coming.”

  My entire body catches fire and I can only peek a small glimpse of Nate who is once again staring back at me. I avert my eyes as quickly as I can, only to find Dex looking suspiciously between the two of us. I wonder if he remembers the kiss. He was there next to me. I wonder if he knows it was Nate.

  Julia purses her lips and shimmies her shoulders at Nate. “Who was your best kiss, hmmm?”

  Nate’s face turns crimson.

  “Well?” Julia smacks his arm; her eyes are wide and she’s feigning shock. “You better say the best kiss you ever had was with someone is in this room!”

  She’s talking about her, and Nate’s face blanches as his head snaps up and looks straight at me. “Yeah, definitely the best kiss I ever had was with someone in this room.”

  “Aw, why thank you, handsome,” she says drunkenly falling over laughing.

  But Nate doesn’t notice or help her up because his eyes are still locked on mine.

  Chapter 16

  It’s almost midnight when a soft tap knocks at my door. Is it Nate? What a horrible thought. For me to get my wish to come true, my friend would have to get her heart broken. Why can’t I just stop wanting him?

  I don’t bother to look through the peephole, and I open the door a little too excitedly in anticipation. In my head Nate is sneaking over to profess his love for me after he saw how brokenhearted I seemed when I rushed out of the dinner party. The fantasy starts with him carrying in flowers and sweeping me up into his arms to carry me to bed. We wouldn’t come out for days. Julia doesn’t mind because in my fantasy she falls insanely in love with Silvia and leaves the rest of the adult male population alone for us straight single women.

  Unfortunately, my dreams shatter and crumble all around me when I stand eye to eye with the jackass who is in reality on the other side of my door. Dex, the door-knocking dickass.

  “What the hell do you want?” I demand, crossing my arms over my chest, and becoming suddenly very aware I’m wearing a pair of boy shorts and a tank top without a bra.

  Dex’s eyes don’t know where to look first. Face, boobs, belly, legs, boobs, face, legs, it makes my skin all warm and weird.

  “How do you act fine when you’re falling apart inside? And put some clothes on, I…you…look all, ugh.” He storms into the room and throws his coat on my chair. “Seriously, tell me.”

  “Tell you what?” And what does “I look all ugh,” mean? I look down over my sleepwear and twist around to peek at my bottom. Do I look fat? Does “ugh” mean I look fat?

  “I was there, you know, at the game. You on the kissing cam. I saw it. And by it I mean you were kissing your best friend’s boyfriend in front of the world and now he’s giving you goofy lovesick eyes and saying the best kisser he’s had was in the room, but not naming the girl he’s with—which, if you remember, is Julia.” He sets himself in a menacing pose, and folds his arms over his very broad chest.

  “This can’t be happening to me right now,” I say under my breath. “Dex, get out of here. I don’t want you in my apartment. You’re going to infest it with your assholeness.”

  He doesn’t budge. “Are you sleeping with him? Because if you are, that’s great. Tell Julia what a lying prick he is and you can have him.”

  “And what, you get Julia?” I ask, with a laugh.

  “Well, yeah.” He says the words, but the thing is, he doesn’t look so sure.

  My arms unfold and my hands drop, dangling loosely at my side. I guess Dex Vanstone and I have something big in common; we’re both in love with the wrong people. “I’m not sleeping with Nate,” I sigh, staring up at him. “And I didn’t know Julia and he were a thing when we were at the game. I don’t think they were dating seriously then. They were just getting to know each other. And she doesn’t know. And—”

  “Really?” he asks, cutting me off. The skin around his eyes softens and his eyebrows pull together as if he’s trying to figure it all out.

  “Yeah, really. And I feel awful about it, so if you say anything to hurt her I will—”

  “But you like him, though, and he likes you, no?”

  “No, he doesn’t, Dex. He doesn’t like me. He wouldn’t. I mean he’s got Julia, he wouldn’t waste his time on someone like me.”

  “That’s true,” he says, low.

  “Well, fuck you.”

  “Yeah, well, we kinda already did that, didn’t we?” He smiles crookedly when he says it, but it’s not an arrogant smirky smile, it’s more like a bashful sweet one. Ugh, I should stab my eyes with a fork so I never have to look at him again. Him or his suddenly sweet stupid smile.

  I plop down on the couch too embarrassed to speak.

  He sits down on the opposite side of the couch and shakes his head in disbelief. “And Heath is gay? I mean what the fuck happened there?”

  “Yeah, that surprised me too,” I admit. “If I knew that, I would have never—we would have never, you know?”

  Dex nods, and a flush creeps across his cheeks. He looks down quickly, to his hands, which he’s folded on his lap. Every time someone has mentioned what happened between us, he blushes. I guess it was humiliating for him as well. I’m probably the last person on earth he wanted to sleep with. My chest tightens and aches. I drag the afghan that drapes over the arm of my couch around the front of my body to hide myself. I feel vulnerable, naked, and absolutely full of flaws and horribly ugly. I fight back tears.

  “I want to punch Nate in the face,” he says. “But it’s not his fault. It’s driving me crazy.”

  My heart flutters fast and I bolt up off the couch, “Driving you crazy?” I look at the clock on my microwave and smile sickeningly to myself. “Wait one more minute and you’ll really feel like a psycho screwball, and you’ll hear it in surround sound.”

  “Hear what?”

  As if on cue, the moaning starts really low, muffled like they’re
in the kitchen, probably on the table, her tits probably slathered in the cheesecake they served us for dessert. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Are you shitting me right now?” He’s stunned. His face looks like he’s hearing things no man should ever hear.

  “I wish I were,” I say, wrapping the afghan tighter around my shoulders for comfort. “Brace yourself, Dex. It’s going to get really loud if they move their party onto her couch.”

  Gimme that big thick cock. I need it, now.

  I press my finger to my lips and force myself to look into Dex’s eyes. Nate and Julia must be on the couch now. It’s too loud for them to be anywhere else. Dex is in utter, undeniable shock.

  Fuck yeah, take my cock. Take it all.

  Really loud, over-the-top gagging sounds ensue, with moans, like she’s getting off on choking on his junk. Do guys actually like that whole act? I want to ask Dex, but I’m almost positive he’s one of those guys who wants to feel like a big man at all times, just like Nate does. I would have never pegged Nate for being a man who needed constant encouragement when he was inside someone that his dick was bigger than everyone else’s.

  Oh Nate, oh God, sucking on you makes me so wet.

  Why? Say why? Why does sucking on me make you so wet?

  She purrs. Because your dick is the biggest I’ve ever had.

  Can I stick it in? Can I have your pussy?

  Yes! Yes! Take it. It’s yours. My pussy is yours.

  Thump. Thump.

  My framed prints once again thud against the wall, but this time Dex is here to witness the sounds of someone you love having monkey sex with another person.

  He looks up at me with wide, round eyes. “Jane, seriously? How do you not masturbate to this every night? My dick is so hard right now.”

  “Dex, that’s disgusting, seriously.” Or normal, let’s go with normal since I want to touch myself all the time to the sound of him moaning. I just wish I could drown out her.

  We both quietly listen. “God, I love you,” Nate says.

  “I love you too, Nate.”

  “We’re both fucked, aren’t we? Neither of us ever had a chance,” Dex says, chuckling.

  My face scrunches up with his words and the room sways a bit. How can he say that so callously?

  “Come here, my little Goth-girl photo booth fuck buddy,” he says, patting the spot on the couch next to him.

  “Dex,” I growl, but I scoot over. I’m disheartened and miserable. Dex is right, I never had a chance, not with Julia around.

  “Come here,” he reaches toward me and pulls me close to him, fitting me into the crook of his arm. “Let’s call a truce you and me, we could be co-presidents in the Lonely Hearts Club.” He grabs the remote and turns on my television, drowning out anything else the two lovebirds talk about next door. “Let’s see what’s on Netflix. We need a good binge-worthy show.”

  I stare up at him shocked. We’re sitting way too close.

  “Don’t look at me like that. Truce,” he says, smiling.

  I blink a few times.

  “Jane Nash, you gave me the best head of my life, and we sounded a hell-of-a-lot hotter fucking than they do. We got a standing ovation, didn’t we?”

  I elbow him in the ribs and he laughs more.

  “Come on, Jane, friends, we both know each other’s secrets now.”

  “That you don’t mind being shit on?”

  He laughs. “You told me my dick was huge.”

  “I may have exaggerated a bit, it was a lust-filled moment and I thought you were Heath.”

  “You thought I was the gay man who wore pearls to a dinner party, you have great taste in men, by the way.” He’s laughing so hard right now I feel the vibrations of him all along the parts of him that are touching the parts of me. We are definitely sitting much too close.

  I try to push away, but he starts playing with the end of a curl that somehow escaped from my messy disaster of a bun and I don’t want him to stop. No one has ever played with my hair before.

  It kind of feels nice.

  “Okay. Do you want to watch a Netflix Original series?”

  He flicks through the choices and smiles down at me. “Yeah, sounds perfect. Which one?”

  Chapter 17

  I wake up on the couch to a light tapping at the front door and a shirtless Dex scrambling eggs at my stove.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, jumping up and walking backwards toward the door. Where is his shirt? Why did he take his shirt off last night? Watching Netflix and falling asleep with me tucked into his side does not constitute getting half-naked in my apartment with me and cooking eggs. I point to him and narrow my eyes into slits. “You better be making me some of that.”

  “I am, woman, now answer the door. Go ahead, turn around,” he smiles, crookedly, “Let me see that ass.”

  I keep my finger pointed at him in warning and pinch up my lips.

  “I’m teasing you,” he says shaking his head.

  He isn’t, when I turn to get the front door, his eyes and my ass make eye-to-ass contact. Serious eye-to-ass contact, and heat flashes over my skin like wildfire.

  “Stop staring at my ass,” I hiss, which turns into a giggle when he immediately responds. “Your ass is staring at me, you need to hide that thing. It’s been booty-calling me all night, whispering my name. Dex. Dex, please. That ass is begging…begging for me to take it out to play, I swear it.”

  “Shush,” I laugh, flustered as I open the door.

  Nate, disheveled and out of breath stands on the other side. My stomach drops. He looks stricken. “Nate? What’s wrong?” I ask.

  Nate’s eyes zip up from my feet to the top of my head, instantly. “Uh, God. Jane, I’m sorry. I…” His eyes narrow as they whip past me and into my kitchen. “Is Dex cooking breakfast in your kitchen?” I follow his line of sight, trying to keep my expression steady.

  “Heeeeey, buddy. You hungry?” Dex calls from my kitchen, and I swear to God he is flexing his pecs as he does it. For a split second, my eyes linger on them. Dex notices, and gives me a wink.

  I sigh and roll my eyes. “Just ignore the half-naked idiot in the kitchen,” I say, turning my attention back to him.

  “Yeah, he can try,” Dex calls from the kitchen, laughing.

  “Seriously, Nate. Ignore him. What’s up?” I ask.

  Nate’s jaw tightens as he stares behind me.

  “Hey, really Nate, what’s up?” I say low, and reach out to touch his arm.

  “Uh, Julia wants you. Her phone is dead and she’s sick and she asked me to come and get you,” Nate stammers.

  Without thinking I ask, “How did you know where I live?”

  His eyes drop back down to my outfit, making me glad I didn’t change last night just because Dex was here. “Julia told me a while ago.”

  I feel dizzy. He knew whose wall he was moaning and screwing Julia up against every night. Why couldn’t they do it in a bed like a normal couple? It’s like they both want me to hear them.

  He cups the back of his neck and rubs it, wincing. “She’s really sick.”

  “Okay, um…let me just get dressed,” I say, backing away from the open door.

  “Yeah, okay,” Nate says, walking in after me.

  I step back a bit surprised that he follows me inside. Why doesn’t he just go back to Julia’s apartment? Why does he feel the need to wait for me? I glance sideways at Dex, who is definitely wondering the same thing by the look on his stupefied face.

  “You think Julia will be okay alone if you wait here while Jane’s changing?” Dex blurts out, pointing my spatula in the direction of the fuck wall. I swallow back a hysterical giggle and explode into a full-fledged coughing fit.

  Nate sits down on the couch and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, yeah. She’s okay. I just can’t take puke, man. It makes me want to puke. And she’s puking up everything she’s had for the last week.”

  “Good to know,” Dex grimaces. He glances in my direct
ion quickly and makes an exaggerated gagging face. I try not to laugh and spin on my heels to head to my bedroom and dress fast. I put on the first thing I can grab, a hoodie and a pair of loose pants.

  I rush over to her apartment and find Julia hovering over the toilet, crying. The room reeks of Merlot-flavored vomit and fresh shit.

  “Oh God, are you okay?” I ask, closing the bathroom door behind me. My eyes instantly water from the smell. I walk behind her and shove open the window to get some fresh air in the small space and turn on the small vent fan above the shower.

  “Uh, so many drinks,” she moans.

  “Yeah, sweetie. I can see that,” I say, pulling her hair away from her face and tying it into a messy bun high off the nape of her sweaty neck.

  She looks up and slow blinks at me with unfocused eyes. Her lips are stained the color of red wine and one of her fake eyelashes dangles at the corner of her eye. “Nate isn’t any help at all.”

  I can see that too, but I don’t agree out loud. There’s no right way to commiserate with your friend about the lack of her boyfriend’s good boyfriend abilities when you’re in love with said boyfriend.

  I rummage through her medicine cabinet and find some pain relievers. “Well, he can’t be that perfect, can he? Here, take a sip of this cold water and take something for the pounding headache you’re going to have.”

  She chokes down the pills and gags over the toilet. “Nate couldn’t even hold back my hair,” she whines.

  “Come on,” I said, helping her to her feet. “Let’s get you in bed with a puke bucket next to you and get you some sleep. I’ll call Gail and tell her you’re calling in sick today.”

  She mumbles and stands with a sway, clinging to the walls. “The fucking room is spinning still.” The front of her shirt is streaked with vomit and her pants are splattered with filth.

  “You know what we should do first? Let’s get you in the shower and wash all that gunk off you.”