An unexpected connection

“Hey there, small friend." The man says hello to Kionna who is clinging to Melanie's thigh like her life depends on it.

The man chuckles and Melanie beams, her cheeks slightly pink. Melanie didn’t get his name, but she felt the fleeting, dazzling link as they drove apart.

Melanie and Kionna had nowhere to sit in the packed restaurant but then her eyes strayed to the table across, where the man she just ran into sat.

He seems to be a brilliant, successful man with remarkable confidence and sensitivity in his late 20s.

Melanies mind rapidly deduces from their similar eye color that the woman he is sitting with is either his mother or his sugar mommy.

The man catches her staring at him and he smiles gently but Melanie's face stays blank. Her eyes narrow slightly and she turns back to Kionna, discounting the man from her attention.

An empty spot finally opens up and the man looks across where Melanie and Kionna are standing. Realizing that he won’t be able to forgive himself if