While I am in the editing process of the upcoming book, “Destiny”, I thought I would give everyone a treat and let chapter one out for a preview. It is not 100% set and may be changed before the final edit. But it give you an idea of the story and what’s to come.

Wouldn’t mind any critiques if you would like to share. Thanks

CHAPTER 1

It wasn’t her usual time to get up; Daniela always had been an afternoon or evening person. She went to her college classes in the afternoon, got home late, and spent her midnights watching movies or reading a good book. After she had finished the spring semester, she was ready to start her final year and would be graduating with a degree in psychology. Her meticulous nature made her life seem to be perfect to the outside world. But for her, it was a fault she had ever since she could remember. Everything had a place, and she had a routine that she must follow.

She thought psychology would be the perfect course of study because if she could understand her need for order, she could help people through theirs. It wasn’t helping her own though so far.

Her best friend Kate, who she met her first year in high school, had told her that possibly changing her routine more often might help her get over some of the anal tendencies that she had grown to hate.

Daniela followed the advice that Kate gave her that summer when she wouldn’t have a class schedule. By going to bed earlier and waking up at odd times, Daniela tried to break up the monotony of her day. But that didn’t stop her from planning each day; she scheduled them differently, but she would at least have a plan. There was a calendar and on each day, Daniela had times for everything including when and what she would eat and on top of that, she scheduled something new to try. While these were all new adventures for her, they were planned. It wasn’t a natural wake-up and say, let’s do this. Her calendar, just like her life, needed a plan. Monday was to try a new drink at a new coffee shop. Tuesday, stay up for twenty-four hours. Wednesday, sleep all day, and it continued, over and over. Each day was something new, but there was a scheduled time for everything.

She planned for that week she was going to get up early and go to a new coffee shop that she had never been to before. She asked around to some of her college friends while she made her calendar for the month for places that they might have tried. She ultimately decided on one that multiple friends recommended.

The parking lot of the café was almost full as she pulled in. It was early for her, but it was morning rush hour time for everyone else in the world who wanted coffee from this local favorite. She scanned the parking lot quickly and saw an open spot ahead. She sped over and turned into the parking space only to find that a motorcycle was parked there. A cuss word she rarely used came out of her mouth as she slammed on her brakes to stop from hitting it.

Once in reverse, she saw someone behind her leaving. She quickly maneuvered her small blue mini cooper backward and into the empty spot before anyone else could come in.

Inside the café, it was just as busy as it’s parking lot. Ordering took twice as long as the coffee shop she frequented. Her usual was a sweetened iced espresso with half-and-half, but this summer was her summer of being wild, so she ordered a French vanilla iced latte and a cranberry muffin; not a big change but it was a change that told her she had stepped outside her comfort zone.

Just like the parking lot, there was no place to sit and enjoy her coffee and breakfast. She paced for a while and began to dread her decision to change her routine. It reminded her of the college campus coffee shop, full, people sitting on the floor and in corners looking for a cool place to relax and read indoors.

Around her, single people took up booths while groups of people huddled around small two top tables. People had their noses in books or hid behind a laptop or tablet, and the groups of three to five people laughed without a care of who heard them. The atmosphere in the café was free and liberating, almost bohemian.

She glanced over at an empty corner of the floor, but the idea of huddling on dirty tile was not her idea of fun. Why be miserable just for breakfast and coffee? She stood in the middle of the room, waiting for someone, anyone in a table or booth to leave, then she would race for that table.

As she waited patiently and scanned the room, she heard a voice next to her. “It might be a while; you can use my other side.”

Daniela glanced at the direction of the welcoming voice and saw a young man who sat in the booth and pointed at the empty seat on the other side of him. She smiled slightly, “Thanks but I’ll wait for someone to leave.”

Just as she said that, she saw someone get up from a small round table for two. She tried to run for the table but was not quick enough. Someone else stole her long awaited table. Rethinking the offer, she looked back at the empty seat across from the naturally tanned stranger with the sincere smile. “Sure you don’t mind?”

He replied, “No, not at all. This place is usually busy. You gotta take a spot when you can get it, you know.”

She smiled as she sat down across from him. She placed her plate with her cranberry muffin on the table and scooted into the booth. He watched as she got situated, then returned his light green eyes back to the book he was reading.

His back was to the wall with his legs extended out over his bench and his feet hung off. While his eyes focused on his book, hers would dance between her food and him. She sat very straight and her posture was proper. She daintily picked at her food taking small bites. It made her look scared or even timid, but she was far from either. Daniela was very outgoing. She had lots of friends and talked to almost anyone who spoke to her. As she adjusted the glass of coffee so that the label faced her, she felt alone and out of place in this new location.

She always grabbed a book before heading out in the mornings for coffee, but since Daniela was more worried about what to order and trying to be different that everything that was normal was off. She forgot her book.

She sat there, without a book or anything to occupy her, she felt naked and hated the feeling. The awkwardness showed, which caused her booth companion to glance up at her now and then to see what she was doing.

He watched as she turned her cup to face her, and then as she straightened out the napkin so that it lined up with the lines on the table. He smiled when she rearranged the sugars and sweeteners on the table. When she finished eating, he watched her neatly clean up any crumbs that might have escaped the napkin and were sitting on the table. She folded the paper up into a small square instead of just crumbling it up into a ball like he would do. Her neatness fascinated him, and he found himself more focused on the little things she did more than his book.

She took another drink from her coffee to wash down the last of her muffin, glanced around and decided that she would leave the odd feeling of being away from the security of old habits. She looked across the table and smiled at the generous and gorgeous guy behind Atlas Shrugged, a book that she wouldn’t have thought anyone would read for fun. She knew that he didn’t see her smile, but she hoped that her charm worked her way through the thick hard-covered book.

A feeling came over Sergio as he continued reading the book that one of the employees at the café recommended. It felt like he was on display, a sense of being judged. He lowered the book a bit to look over it and saw the red-headed girl that he offered a seat to a few moments before. She has a small welcoming smile that just curled the corners of her lips slightly. She was looking at the book. He smiled back.

“Thank you for the seat.” She said. It wasn’t a moment later that she was edging her way out of the booth with a pleased look on her face.

He replied. “Anytime.”

Sergio had been a regular at the coffee shop from the first moment he set foot in Southern California. It was close enough to his apartment he rented but wasn’t a chain location, which he wasn’t a fan of because of how he grew up. Sergio immediately made friends with the workers of the café and let them recommend places other local places to him. Even after hours, he met up with a couple of the guys who worked there and threw back some beers, watched movies and engaged in conversations about topics that were foreign to him.

Being homeschooled all of his life, the simplest things he was oblivious about but after listening to the guys for a while, he could join in with them without feeling awkward.

They understood that his sheltered life made him the odd duck out, but he was kind and genuine. Sergio was overly friendly to everyone, which made him a little more naïve, but his buddies found it refreshing to have someone new in their circle who didn’t want or need anything other than a friend.

Because of his gentleman-like demeanor, the girls at the café adored him. They flirted with him often, hugged on his solid built frame and messed with his shaggy medium length brownish blonde hair, which nicely curled when he let it dry naturally. Compared to his friends, he was considered a “pretty boy” by the girls, though that term made him feel like a sissy if he heard them say it aloud.

He always denied that he was pretty, he thought of himself as manly more than pretty. He knew he was good looking, but wasn’t pompous about it. He smiled when a girl glanced his way, which boosted his self-esteem, but Sergio never let it go to his head.

Sometimes, his buddies were envious about how many girls Sergio could have if he wanted them, but none of them ever spark enough interest to get tied down with one.

Southern California was such a fast pace compared to where he previously lived, a farm in Central California. The small town had less than ten thousand people, most of which were farm workers. His home for the past twenty-three years was up in the hills, on his family’s olive farm. His mother was born there too. It was a hundred-year-old family business that didn’t interest him.

Teresa, Sergio’s mom, was his teacher. She was a woman who left the farm to get an education but moved right back to raise her son and many of the farm workers’ children. Everyone on the farm was like family, though the workers were just that, workers. Even though most of the children of the farm workers would probably grow up to be farm workers too, at least they would be able to read and write.

Sergio had friends growing up, the farm workers’ kids. He never thought any less of them; they were his friends. They ran around playing kid games, had bicycles, played baseball or tag, and other games like hide-and-seek. The girls learned how to cook, and the boys learned how to farm.

Sergio was no exception. His grandfather, just like his great-grandfather were bred into olive farming. It was a tradition that went all the way back to their ancestors in Italy. As far back as the family tree could go, Sergio was born into a family of olive farmers. And while, the older generation mostly made table olives; Sergio’s great grandfather started making olive oil, and that was what the farm in California produced.

The family was proud of their product, and it was destined for Sergio to take over the farm. The business had been handed down from son to son, but when Sergio’s grandfather only was able to conceive a girl, that tradition skipped. They pushed Sergio’s mother into finding a husband and having a child. The option for a girl was non-existent. They would have made her continue to have children until a boy was born. It was the Italian pride that would not let the company business be taken over by a woman, so if no son were born the company would have died.

Sergio spent most of his teenage years being groomed to take over the family business, but he didn’t have an interest. He daydreamed of a better life, one he knew his dad had after leaving the farm.

At night, he’d watch television and see lives better than his. Guys his age were out partying or traveling. Every so often after he turned eighteen, he took his truck and drove down the mountains that separated central and southern California. During some of the downtime at the farm, he took a weekend to drive to the coast. He spent time on the beach and thought about how he could get out on his own and live the high life as he called it.

It wasn’t until that past year that Sergio told his family that he needed a break. It wasn’t that he told them he wasn’t going to take over the family business, Sergio just wasn’t sure if he wanted that life.

Sergio wasn’t ready and wanted to see what the world had to offer him. There were lots of protests from his mother and grandfather, but they knew that they could not keep him if his heart were not in it. He was a lot like his father, his mother said.

In Sergio’s mind, that was a compliment. Even though he could only remember a few things about his father, they were pretty incredible things. He looked exactly like him, blondish brown hair that grew way to fast and was naturally wavy. Tall and slender with almost no fat on him, but his muscles were defined enough to know that he was strong. The Italian in him gave him a nice natural tan and with his blondish hair, he could pass for a surfer on the beach.

His dad had only one passion that Sergio could remember, and that was his love for cars. Every month, car magazines were delivered to the house. Sergio would sit next to his father and read the magazines. Because of this, Sergio could look at a car and pick out the make, model, and year with a snap of a finger. After a hard day’s work on the farm, his dad always made time to work on his truck, a 1953 Chevy pickup 3100 series. Sergio remembered it very well. His father tried to restore it back to its original condition. On weekends, they hunted down parts for the truck and worked on it after they completed their farm chores.

One morning, after a loud fight between his parents the night before, Sergio woke up to find the truck gone. The truck and his dad never came back. He could remember parts of the fight, but it was so long ago that he didn’t know if it was an accurate memory or something made up. What Alex thought without a doubt was that his dad left to find a better life, something more than olive trees and oil.

As soon as Sergio was old enough to drive, he longed to find the same better life that his dad was living. Like his father, he found an old 1953 Chevy Pickup and after working hard in the fields, he took time restoring it. Once it ran and was reliable, Sergio packed up all his stuff and set out to find that better life.

It pained Sergio’s mom to watch her son leave, but she knew that it was something he would do eventually. All Teresa could do was hope that he would come back and take over the farm. With his grandfather getting sicker by the day, Teresa hoped it would be sooner than later. It wasn’t the best way to help him come home, but she refused to have her only son living on the streets begging for work and food. She made sure there was always money in the bank for him to use.

Out on his own, Sergio found an inexpensive apartment close to one of the universities in the Los Angeles area. It wasn’t the best neighborhood, but it was a roof over his head, and it had a place for him to work on his truck. He spent most of his days either hanging out with his new friends, working on his truck or reading. The concept of finding a job never seemed to cross his mind. There was always enough money in the bank, and sweating outside was a thing of the past. Sergio had a feeling that he was probably living the same way as his father.