“Peter, get me that report by noon. I need it now! June, I swear, I’ve asked you to get your column into me, and I don’t see it on my desk, do I? Jack, sports in my office in twenty or you’re in trouble. Come on people, we’re going to the press tonight. Get a move on!” With that, Alison Peterson slammed the door to her office shut and sunk into her plush chair behind her desk. Being the editor of a leading magazine was definitely not an easy job and she sometimes swore to herself that if she stripped her hair of its color, underneath would be completely gray. She was only 25 years old and had quickly risen to the top of her game. After all, she’d been doing this since her freshman year of high school. She was more than experienced. Glancing at the unending stack of papers looming on her desk, Alison let out a sigh and opened her laptop to begin editing through the mess. Hours went by and she barely paid attention to the people retreating in and out of her office or the persistent ringing of the phone. Finally she broke out of her editorial coma and snatched up the receiver.
“Hello?” Her voice seemed almost a little too irritable but her irritable tone was replaced with a smile when she heard the voice on the other end. “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Ali, Happy Birthday To You…”
“Awww, Chris, thank you. I had forgotten it was even my birthday.”
“Hectic day?”
‘Totally. I’m swamped.”
“Well then I won’t keep you long…just wanted to say…” He was interrupted by a knock on her door.
“Hold on, baby. Someone is at the door. Come in!”
The door opened and Alison gasped as her eyes fixated on Chris, standing there with flowers in his hand and a cell phone attached to his ear.
“Oh my…”
“As I was saying…I won’t keep you long, but I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”
Alison recovered from her initial shock and almost jumped over her desk and into his arms. She gazed into his chocolate brown eyes and felt the familiar tingly sensations and felt her heart skipping beats.
“I love you, Ali.”

“I get a feeling I can’t explain
Whenever your eyes meet mine
My heart spins in circles
And I lose all space and time
And now that we’re standing face to face
Something tells me it’s gonna be okay…”

Alison had just started her first job out of college at the Orlando Sentinel when she met Chris Kirkpatrick for the first time. Although he was a very attractive guy, she had not taken a quick liking to him. She normally went for quiet types, and Chris defied the quiet stereotype. Most of the time he was anything but quiet. And their personalities had clashed intensely. She remembered the day clearly when she had first been introduced to Chris. Since she was “young and fresh”, as the editor of the Sentinel had told her, she had been given the opportunity to do an exclusive interview with the pop group of the moment, *NSYNC. Alison had to admit that she hardly knew anything about them. She knew her little sister was going to marry Justin, and that millions of the girls around the world taped their pictures on their wall and fantasized about them, but that was it. She was sure she had heard their songs on the radio, but even then she couldn’t tell them apart from the rest of the boy groups on the scene. Because of her *NSYNC illiteracy, Alison had been completely nervewracked waiting in the offices of Wright Entertainment Group for the group to show up. She definitely knew she did not want to ask them the silly questions that Bop and Tiger Beat would take care of, and she knew that any petty stuff could more than likely get her fired from her cushy little job. She had compiled a list of questions that she thought maybe people would want to know, but she had not expected the harsh reaction she got to one of her final questions. She asked the inevitable question of “Who’s dating who?” and while the rest of the guys simply said: “I date around” or “No, I’m single”, Chris had shocked her with his answer.
“Why do you want to know, huh? Think you’re going to get into one of our pants? Sorry, girl.”
The rest of the guys had laughed at first, obviously thinking it was Chris goofing off. But when he jumped out of his chair and stormed off, they knew he definitely wasn’t joking. At first, Alison had felt bad for maybe pushing the wrong button, but as she was leaving, Chris pushed her buttons a little too far by continuing his assault.
“You know, I hate you journalists. Thinking you are doing the world good by invading our personal lives. You should stick to what you guys know best: being annoying little pests, writing, and being annoying assholes again.”
Alison was usually pretty calm, but she had swallowed enough of his harsh criticisms. He didn’t know anything about her and what little she knew about him, she didn’t like.
“For one thing, asshole, I don’t give a shit about invading your personal life because it’s obvious you don’t have one. If you did, then you wouldn’t be so touchy about it. What? Did you screw up? Not give your girl enough attention? Did she leave you for another man? All I can say, is GOOD FOR HER! You probably deserve to be, how did you put it on Larry King, a ‘bitter old man’. Have a good life, prick.”
With that, she stormed off. She had even expected what was coming the next couple of days and as she had packed her stuff off of her desk, she wasn’t surprised. She was certain Chris had called and informed her editor of her work ethics and bad manners. Part of her didn’t even care. The other part of her did care and she blamed her newfound unemployment on the easiest target in the world: Chris Kirkpatrick.

“And I’m ready to fall in love tonight
Ready to hold my heart open wide
I can’t promise forever, but baby I’ll try
Yes I’m ready to fall in love tonight…”

Alison quickly jumped into work with another publication, and started to ascend her rise to editor. She pushed her hatred for Chris Kirkpatrick into the back of her mind and after a few months, she had almost forgotten he even existed. She had pushed him so far back into her mind, however, that she was completely speechless when she ran into him again. She had moved to the other side of Orlando and into a new apartment complex in order to be closer to work. Half of her wanted to run and pack her stuff to relocate again when she realized that her next door neighbor was indeed the one and only Chris Kirkpatrick, but the other half of her wanted to stay and torture him mercilessly. She did not care whatsoever for him, and she considered him to be one of the necessary evils of society. It kind of surprised her that Chris seemed mellowed out the next time she crossed his path, and he was actually kind of civil to her. Alison, of course, had not wanted any of his bull.
“Look, buddy. I know who you are, and I don’t like you. I think we made that clear a few months ago when you got me fired from my job. You stay on your side of the breezeway, I stay on my side, and there are no problems. Understood?”
“Alison, I’ve already told you I’m sorry for the way I acted that day. My girlfriend and I had just broken up, and I really wasn’t ready for the girlfriend question. Sorry.”
Alison, though, had all but slammed the door in his face, unwilling to accept any kind of apology from him. And she smiled as she remembered the look of fear on his face as he walked into the laundry room and saw her standing there. His look was a mix between deciding to run far away from her and a last wind of courage to actually be in the same breathing space as her. Even more unnerving was having to ask her to borrow some laundry detergent when his box ran empty. Alison had felt halfway sorry for him and had given him some of hers, and the peace offering had started an uneasy friendship at first. They would casually say hi to each other if they met each other on the sidewalk, or give friendly glances towards one another if they saw each other in town. After a few months, though, the ice between them broke completely and they began an easy friendship with one another. Chris found he could trust Alison, even though she was a journalist, and he began opening his heart to her and healing himself from his bad break up the previous year. He even gave her an affectionate nickname, Ali, and Alison was surprised that she didn’t mind him using the one nickname she had hated most growing up.

“I know you’ve been watching
And choosing the moment
But I’ve been dreaming of that day
No one before you has gotten to me this way
And now that we’re standing face to face
There’s something that I need to say…”

After becoming friends for two years, Chris and Alison had easily fallen into a relationship. It had not even been made official, but everyone knew they were together. They still butted heads occasionally and it always made their relationship even more interesting. Gradually Alison had moved all of her stuff across the breezeway and into Chris’s apartment and before long, they were an exclusive and fiercely serious couple. Of course, Chris still had extreme characteristics that Ali had to get used to, like his almost unnatural love for his pug, Busta. And Chris wasn’t exactly the cleanest guy and he left things lying around the apartment constantly. Other than that, though, things sailed pretty smoothly for them. Allison couldn’t help but smile whenever she thought of the little things he did to show her how much he cared. Whenever he wasn’t on tour or promoting Fumanskeeto, he was at home babying her. Several times she came home with her PJs already laid out for her and Chris waiting on the floor to give her a foot and back massage. In concert, whenever the group performed a certain song, Chris would hold his hand over his heart and sing the same lyric line, pledging his love to Alison for all the world to see. Her favorite time, though, was after they had finished making love and Chris always gazed into her eyes for several minutes admiring her, and while smiling down over her, he always kissed the tip of her nose. It was a tradition he had kept since the first time and he had never missed a beat. Little moments like those were Alison’s favorite and those little things made her love Chris even more.

“And I’m ready to fall in love tonight
Ready to hold my heart open wide
I can’t promise forever but baby I’ll try
Yes I’m ready to fall in love tonight
Nothing is certain this I know
Wherever we’re headed I’m ready to go…”

Chris waved his hand in front of Allison’s eyes and broke her out of her long gaze and it was then she had realized she had drifted off completely while gazing into his dark orbs.
“Where were you at, baby?”
“Just thinking about you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah…how wonderful you actually turned out to be.”
“Oh, well then, that’s good, because I’ve got something to ask you.” With that, he dropped to both knees and pulled a velvet box out of his pocket. Alison swore her heart stopped beating when she realized what he was doing.
“Alison Marie Peterson, I can’t even begin to tell you what you have done for my life. When I first met you, I had already convinced myself that I could never love another person the way I had loved before you. But I slipped up and I let you in and found out that I could love more intensely than I ever thought possible. I can’t promise you forever, and I can’t even promise you tomorrow, Ali, but I can promise you every second of every minute of each day. Ali, will you marry me?”
Alison couldn’t even force her lips to mouth her acceptance, and she willed her eyes to cry tears of joy as she rapidly nodded her head yes. Chris kissed her longingly and pulled her close.
“I’m ready to fall, baby.”

“I can’t promise forever but baby I’ll try
Yes I’m ready to fall in love tonight
Yes I’m ready to fall in love tonight."

Lyrics--© Richard Marx
As Performed By: Meredith Edwards