crème glacée [the fate of coincidences 1]

2: Jade

The perks of being a contractor was that you didn't have to go to work at a specific time and get off exactly eight hours later. You worked for a salary instead of an hourly wage and your schedule was pretty flexible. Yet somehow, Jade still managed to be late to the shoot. It was a miracle, really, how fast time flew by sometimes. One moment she was in her living-room wrapped up in layers of blankets, laughing at a reality show, and the next, Ria's manager was calling her and asking where she was.

That, of course, resulted in a frantic run throughout the one bedroom apartment, throwing on clothes and packing up her makeup tools. She couldn't afford to lose her first real job after two years of scraping by on freelancing.

Twenty nerve-wrecking minutes in traffic and she was almost there. Finding parking was a nightmare right in the middle of downtown. After the third lap around the block, she spotted a tiny parking space right at the building's entrance. It was right between a bulky white van and one of those really nice black BMWs that would cost Jade her entire family. Not that she'd ever sell her family for a nice car. She didn't even know if there was a business that specialized in buying families.

Jade wasn't bad at too many things, but one of those things was parallel parking. Big time. After small bursts of back and forth and a lot of craning her neck to see through the back window, her car was still not standing straight, and the back tire was too far on the curb. In a fit of frustration, she hit the break petal for the nth time. The car lurched forward and there was a cringe-worthy sound of bumpers meshing together. That's when she realized that she pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal.

"Holy mother of rainbow sherbet with sprinkles..." she whispered under her breath. "I don't need this right now."

She got out of the car, contemplating if she should just run for it.

"Holy crap, stay right there," someone called.

Jade turned to find a businessman walking out of the Glacé building with a panicked expression on his face. The owner of the nice car, probably. She could bet twenty bucks on the fact that she looked like a deer caught in the headlights right about now.

"S-sorry! Oh my salted caramel, I am so sorry," she blundered, trying to hold in tears and clutching at the hem of her jacket.

"Of course you're sorry." The man sounded nearly hysterical. "You just maimed the best car I ever had."

Now that he was closer, he looked a lot younger than she'd originally thought he was. Poor soul. Sucked into the cold and cruel world of business at the beginning of his youth. His handsome face was on the verge of getting premature wrinkles, too.

"I can buy you wrinkle cream as compensation?" she said in a small voice.

"Wrinkle cream...?" He looked away from his car's damaged rear bumper to give her a baffled look. "Just give me your number."

That took her aback for a second, but she quickly recovered. "I know I'm drop dead gorgeous and everything." She flipped her messy unbrushed auburn locks over her shoulder. "But I'm not looking for a relationship right now."

He stared at her for almost a full half a minute and she almost felt bad for rejecting him until he spoke.

"I admire your confidence, but I need your number so I can call you later and discuss how you're going to pay for all the damage you've caused to my car." He shifted on his feet impatiently. "I'm running really late right now and as much as I want to, I don't have the time to stay here and talk about just how expensive BMWs are, especially mine."

"Right." She cleared her throat and took the phone he offered her. "Of course. I'm sure BMWs are very expensive. I really am sorry."

She put a number into his phone and gave it back with a meek smile. He took it and hurriedly got into his car. Jade watched him pull out onto the road, screeching tires and all, until she realized that she was running late, too. Still inwardly freaking out about the whole accident, she grabbed her stuff and headed right into the Glacé building.