Page 1 of Destiny

Part 1

Chapter 1 – Bea

“Bea!” little Aurora and Alessia call out after seeing me pull into their driveway.

“Hey, girls!” I say back before scooping them up into a hug. “How are you today?” I always love seeing them after a long day working at my family’s record shop. It’s surprising how busy we still get given the outdated technology we offer, but the residents of our small northern Wisconsin town seem to keep things old-fashioned. Sometimes a little too much.

“Good!” Aurora answers.

“Yeah!” her sister echoes.

Even though they are technically fraternal twins, they do look a lot alike with their olive skin and dark blonde hair. But I can always tell them apart because Aurora has pale green eyes, whereas Alessia’s are brown—just like her dad’s.

Speaking of their father, he comes out shortly after.

“Hey, Bea!”

“Hi, Marco.” Just saying his name makes my heart skip a beat, and I can hardly bring myself to look at him.

“How are you?”

“Pretty good. How about you?”

When I do meet his gaze, his devastating looks amaze me.

As his name would suggest, he was born in Italy but raised mostly in the United States. In fact, for almost a decade, he lived just down the street from the record store and was a regular customer. But if he didn’t come alone, he came with his girls—never any other female companion. Which surprised me.

“Well, these two have given me a run for my money, like usual.” He rustles the already messy buns on top of their heads.

The twins scoff, roll their eyes, and cross their arms. “We just think we’re old enough for cell phones. What do you think, Bea?”

Their father also crosses his arms and looks at me eagerly for my opinion.

“I—uh . . . I don’t know. Six seems pretty young for that kind of responsibility.”

“We’re going to be seven in two months!”

I smile at them. “Still.” Then, I crouch down to their level and place a hand on one of their shoulders. “Trust me. Being an adult is not all it’s cracked up to be. If I were you, I’d hold on to being a kid for as long as I could.”

“Thank you! That’s what I said!”

“No, it isn’t, Daddy. You said phones were too expensive; they will open our world to weirdos, and we’ll just break them right away.”

He moves his head back and forth as he listens to the ever-feisty Aurora talk. “Yeah, well. What Bea said is what I meant.”

“When did you get your first phone?” Alessia asks me.

Oh, boy. “Honestly, my parents didn’t let me have one until I was fifteen.”

They count from their age up to that. “Oh, man! That’s eleven years from now!” Aurora complains.

I just shrug. Remember what I said about people around here being old-fashioned? My parents are certainly no exception. It didn’t help that they felt the need to constantly watch me like a hawk after I was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. So, a phone didn’t seem necessary when one of them was always breathing down my neck.

“When you were fifteen? Wasn’t that like two years ago?” Marco jokes as he walks past me.

I hate that he just sees me as a little kid. “I’m twenty-five, for your information.” And he is only thirty-six; it’s not like our ages are lightyears apart.

“Yeah, yeah. Do you have everything handled here?” he asks after opening the door of his truck.

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