Falling into Forever Read Free

metal strings, he kept his eyes focused on the spray-tanned, platinum blonde as he tapped his black boot in a slow, steady rhythm on the city sidewalk.
    â€œOh my,” she said to herself, holding her ringing cell phone to her ear as she admired him from behind her tortoiseshell Gucci sunglasses, a bead of sweat collecting along the thin gold necklace draped across her protruding collarbones.
    At his feet, a guitar case lay open. Passersby had thrown loose change and single dollar bills inside. A gray kitten nudged the coins with her bitty paws, purring. A young girl and her mother passed by.
    â€œLook, Mama,” the golden-blond five-year-old with pigtails whispered to the woman gripping her hand. The wide-eyed girl stroked the kitten.
    â€œDon’t, Abby,” her mother said.
    He knelt down by the girl and picked up the playful kitten. “Her name is Princess,” he said, holding the kitten out to her. While Abby cradled the fur ball in her arms, the kitten licked her face. Her mother tried to pry it away.
    He locked his azure eyes on the mother. “She does need a good home,” he said.
    A warm tingle pierced the woman’s skin. “Thank you,” she said to him, smiling. “Come on, Abby. Let’s go home.”
    The girl hugged the kitten tightly to her chest and skipped away from the guitar case, but then she stopped and turned. Racing back, she beamed at the kneeling man and kissed his forehead. “You’ve made us the happiest girls in the world,” she whispered. He bit his lip when the girl leapt away with Princess and skipped back to her mother.
    When she was gone, he said softly, “You have found your princess. Perhaps I shall one day find mine.”
    Just across the street, ten stories up in Park View Tower, Alexandra Peyton paced across the hardwood floors of apartment 10-C, impatiently waiting for her friend Taylor. The smacking of her black rubber flip-flops against the polished floor echoed through every room. Her mom, a biologist, was at work at Atlanta’s Centers for Disease Control. Her chunky bulldog, Jack, watched her lazily from his cushioned perch on the leather sofa.
    â€œWhere is she?” Alexandra said, exasperated at her friend’s tardiness. But Jack merely rolled over without answering. “Why does it take her so long to get ready?” she asked him, looking down at her simple, basic uniform: dark-blue denim, cut-off shorts and a faded-red tank top.
    As she reached for her cell phone on the coffee table, the screen lit up with her best friend’s name and buzzed in her palm. “It’s about time, Taylor,” Alexandra said as she hit a green button on the keypad.
    When she took the call, Jack whined and hid his head under a pillow. “Calm down, little man,” Alexandra said, rubbing the top of the agitated bulldog’s head.
    She greeted the caller. “You said you were leaving your house any minute. That was three hours ago. Where are you?”
    â€œI’m outside,” Taylor’s voice sang through the phone.
    â€œI don’t believe you,” said Alexandra. She stopped scratching Jack’s fuzzy ears with her chewed, unpolished fingernails.
    â€œLook outside,” Taylor demanded.
    Alexandra walked toward the apartment balcony and threw open the glass doors. It was a brilliant day with a cloudless, blue sky, giving clear visibility. Once out on the balcony, she said into the phone, “I don’t see you, Taylor,” while she peered over the side of the railing. Grabbing a pair of binoculars from a plastic table beside her, she scanned the cars parked below on the bustling city street in front of her apartment building.
    â€œWhere’s your Mustang?” asked Alexandra, suddenly seeing her friend sitting in a shiny, silver convertible, waving her hand in the air toward the balcony. Focusing the binoculars on the car’s front vanity plate (“ILUVDAD”),