Chapter 1 – Superman + Barbie

“Ugh, where is it?” I scrambled through my bag while standing in the middle of an aisle in Wal-Mart, searching for the one thing that was evading me. My clashy gold metallic purse hung off one shoulder as I struggled to search through it and I almost threw it down in frustration. Pens, wallet, glue, tape, brush, makeup, buttons, toothpicks, and a Lego man. No phone. “Where is it?” 

As I fought a losing battle with my hand bag, it tipped upside down and out flew everything, including the elusive phone. “I don’t have time for this,” I gasped through clenched teeth, scooping up everything within my reach, dropping it within my purse. As I reached for the last item, I saw a hand reach it before me, speaking before I could.

“Excuse me ma’am. Do you need any help?”

I glanced up, wishing that I had worn something other than my daytime rags. It was my day off and I hadn’t gone through the trouble of changing out of my superman pajama shorts and Barbie tank top. The temperature was at all time highs and I didn’t see the purpose of wearing regular clothes when you weren’t going to work. In front of me stood a man with the name tag “Craig” from Delmonico’s on his shirt.

“Ummmmm,” I stuttered as I stared. Things like this just didn’t happen to me. Craig grinned down at me, with that knowing smile. He was drop dead gorgeous. I know that that is so cliché, but it was so true. There stood my dream come true. He was way too cocky, but hey, no one noticed me, let alone handsome men.

Note to myself: never wear pajamas to go shopping anymore, especially in Wal-Mart, because who knew who you will meet.

I was turning 22 in 2 weeks, and was not looking forwards to it. I didn’t have any men in my life besides my best friends Buck and Jason, and you couldn’t really count them. I had known Buck since grade school and there was nothing better than having another freak to help you through high school. ‘The Walking Dictionary,’ or ‘Dictionary’ for short was my name. I could still remember those days and I had struggled to forget and move on, unfortunately Buck changed very little besides removing the geek clothing, including the pocket protector thankfully.

I realized that I was still sprawled across the floor looking like road kill and I could feel my face visibly flare up. He reached down with his free hand and helped me to my feet. I couldn’t help but feel the warmth in his grip, warm and strong, but not overly crushing, just perfect. I really did not understand why some men found that they had to destroy your hand just to seem manly.

“Hi, my name is Craig. I saw you and figured you might need some help.”

“Thank you so much. I couldn’t find my phone, and that was my mom calling. She set “When I grow up” as her ringtone on my phone. She usually thinks that she is still super young and…” Ugh. I realized I was blabbing. I did this all the time when I met hot guys and they pretty much never talked to me ever again. “Sorry, I was blabbing. Anyways, thank you. My purse is way too full of junk. Like they always say, everything but the kitchen sink, only mine has that too.”

Why I can never seem to be able to talk like a normal human being when I am around men is beyond me. I tried not to grimace as I stopped talking, but much to my surprise, he didn’t even look at me weird. It has got to have been a first, and that was when I realized that I hadn’t introduced myself. I had to use willpower to not knock myself up the head.

“Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Jessica. What’s yours?” Once again, I just couldn’t seem to control my tongue. I knew he had introduced himself; I just couldn’t keep the words in my mouth. “Thank you, I just have to hurry because I am late for nephew. My brother is mad at me because I keep forgetting to pick him up, or I am just super late so he has to wait for me.”

My eyes boggle as he grinned. He actually grinned!! No guy ever grins at me, let alone one with a dimple on one side. This has got to be my lucky day, thank you God!

“Can I ever see you again?” Craig asks

“Ummm,” I stammered, “I’m not supposed to give my number to strangers so.” There goes his dimple again. “But, I am pretty sure that if God wants it to be so, he will plan for us to bump into each other.” Finally, I got what I wanted to say out. If he wants to know me, he has to know all of me.

“You believe in God?”

“Yeah. He has saved me from a lot of deep pits that I had tried clawing out of, but all he had to do was fly over with his spaceship, zap me up, heal my cuts and bruises, give me a hug and send me on back down to earth.”

“You have a really strange way of looking at things.”

“I suppose,” I laughed out. I seemed to get that a lot from guys, right before they dumped me. Well, not technically dumped, because, they didn’t even try to go out with me. They just dropped my like a hot potato.

I suddenly remembered Nate, my nephew, and hurriedly glanced down at my phone. Five minutes late. My mom was going to kill me. This was my last chance to get back into her good graces. I sighed and realized that I had missed what he had just said. “Pardon,” I blurted out.

“Well,” he restated, “I was wondering if you wanted my number. This is my cell number.” He grabbed a business card out of his pants pocket and said, “Do you happen to have a pen on you?”

I scrambled around my purse for a couple of seconds before my favourite pink My Little Pony pen came into view at the bottom of the bag. I snatched it up, only I moved my hand too quickly and the pen went flying across the room. Could this day get any worse, I wondered as the pen skittered across the tiled floor and under a clothing rack. I looked up at Mr. Perfect, and wished that I hadn’t met him under these absolutely ridiculous circumstances.

He laughed and said, “It’s alright, can I just see your phone?”
I swear that I had never given my phone to anyone I didn’t know, but he quickly typed something down and handed it back. I hadn’t seen my hand shake that much since twelfth grade and was asked to prom, as I took the bedazzled phone from him and slipped it into my purse.

I felt a touch on my shoulder and a deep voice says, “Hey Jess, I see you still like superman and Barbie.”I quickly turned and squealed. There stood before me my brother’s best friend from high school. 5 years ago we had become great friends, but he ended up having to travel to Egypt on an excavation, and hadn’t seen him since. Until now.

Before me stood Jason, one of my two greatest and truest friends. His arms opened wide and I crashed right into him, bringing us tumbling to the floor. He laughed and helped me to my feet.

I laughed again and squeezed even tighter. I could see his gaze was on something else when I looked in his face. I turned to look behind me and that was when I remembered Craig, the hot guy that I had been minutes before gushing over and making myself look like a fool. My neck start to burn and I could feel the heat quickly travel up to my face. I had once again accomplished to look like a complete dweeb.

“Hey Jess, who is this?”

“Ummm, this is a guy I just recently met while I was looking like I was trying to sleep on the floor.” I glanced at Craig, and weirdly enough, he laughed. Guys never laughed at something I said except for Jason and Buck, and they were kind of didn’t count.

“Hi, I’m Craig. It’s nice to meet you.”

Jason reached out his hand and shook Craig’s. “I’m Jason. I see you have met my girl,” he said with a little hint of protectiveness.

Why he had to say something like that I don’t know. Maybe he was being all protective or something, but I could see Craig’s eyes visibly widen as he said, “I was under the impression that Jessica wasn’t dating anyone.”

Oh no. I knew this was going to get ugly. Before Jason could
reply I stepped in. “Excuse me people. I am here you know. Jason, back off, you haven’t been here for 4 years, don’t expect to just become my protector again. And Craig, I would appreciate it if you would ask me if I was free instead of assuming. Yeah, I don’t normally collect phone numbers from anyone I meet, but that doesn’t mean that I want to date you.”

I couldn’t believe I had just said that. I could feel a migraine forming between my eyes and I resisted the urge to rub my head. Here was another example of me being my normal ridiculous self.
The look of shock crossed their faces and before they could even blink I moved out of Jason’s grasp, and stalked out of Wal-Mart.