Falling for Colton (Falling #5) by Jasinda Wilder Read Free Book Online Page A

shout it out loud.  
    “Excuse me, young man. No call for that kind of language.” An old black woman, graying dreadlocks tied back by a large rubber band, looks at me.  
    “Sorry. But that asshole stole my money.” I gesture at the seat where he’d been. “Or someone did.”
    She gives me a sympathetic look. “I didn’t see nothin’, honey. Sorry.”  
    I want to cry. I don’t, I can’t, but if I could, I probably would. “People, man. Fuckin’ people.”  
    She shakes her head, her thick queue of hair swinging. “Hard luck. Sorry, honey.” And then she’s gone.  
    No one else says anything, or even bothers to look at me.  
    I’m broke. Totally broke. I dig into my pocket and find a single crumpled five-dollar bill.
    Alone in New York, homeless, and now broke with five bucks to my name.  
    Nothing to do but handle it, I guess. I trudge off the bus and scan the crowd for the old guy, but he’s nowhere to be seen. The crowd of people is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. People of every age, race, and size mill in a never-ending sea, and finding one face, even one I knew well, would be impossible. So finding one man I hardly noticed when I first boarded the bus? Impossible. Besides, he’s probably long gone by now, with my cash.
    I follow the crowd out of the station and onto to the main road, ignoring the hustlers trying to take advantage of kids exactly like me: young, homeless, and scared. I may not be book-smart, but I know better. I push past them, pretend they don’t exist.
    For a second I lose my breath. Reality hits hard .  
    I’m in New York Fucking City. The road is a river of cars, many of them the iconic Yellow Cab. The sidewalk is crammed with people. The noise is deafening. Engines, horns, brakes, voices. A whistle sounds off to my right, and I turn to look, see a policeman blasting on his traffic whistle. I follow my instincts and end up at the intersection of Eighth and West Forty-second. I have no idea what that means, or where in the city I am.  
    Where do I go? What do I do?  
    I’m hungry. I’m used to eating a lot more than granola bars and apples and shit. I work out a lot, so I’m used to bulking up on protein shakes and eggs and meat, lots of protein to pack on the muscle. I have to shit. I’m tired.  
    What the hell did I get myself into?  
    How the hell am I going to survive? My throat is tight. My chest aches and my eyes burn. I only slept fitfully on the bus, so I’ve been awake for…shit, almost two days.  
    I tell myself to calm down. To think. Be rational. I can do this.  
    The first thing I need to do is get a job. This is the Big Apple, there’s got to be a garage or something where I can pick up some work. Changing oil, sweeping floors, shit, anything. I’ll clean toilets.  
    First thing, though, is to start walking and find a garage.  
    One foot in front of the other, I follow Eighth Avenue and just keep walking and watching. I end up in Central Park, which is beautiful and interesting, but not what I need right now. I walk back out to the city itself, along a street I think is called Central Park West. I have no clue where I’m going so I start turning up streets at random and end up on…Sixty-fourth. I stop at the corner of Broadway. The real fuckin’ Broadway. And, for a moment, as I take in the lights and the people and the magic, I forget why I ended up here in the first place.  
    At little further up the block I see a sign that, after some puzzling, I make out as “Emergency Auto Repair”, and I go in.
    Leaning thick forearms on scratched counter is a big, bald white guy. He’s got tats, earrings and is wearing blue coveralls. “Help you?”
    “Yeah, I’m looking for work. I’ve got a lot of experience with automotive repair, I can take apart and reassemble—”
    “Not hiring. Sorry.” He pushes upright and crosses his arms over his chest.  
    “For real, I can do it blindfolded. I’ll work the desk, I’ll clean the