PREVIEW

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CHAPTER 1 – JOE

While sitting on that horrible hard, plastic chair I had time to think about our trip. The situations that emerged. The days flipped through my mind as one would hold a paperback book in one hand while using the thumb of the other hand to fan through the open pages. I looked out the huge plate glass windows of the airport in Charlotte feeling a chill from my lower limbs to my arms; the air conditioning was not the cause. The sky was just as dark as my mood.  I should have been somewhere else; not here.

Was it my fault our trip had not been the fantasy vacation of a lifetime? From the inception of the travel plans my intentions had been easy enough. I would take Alex and her three children to the  arid, tropical island of Aruba, show them around a bit to explore the vast nakedness of the bulk of the island, and have some romantic evenings watching the sunset. I had planned on winning the hearts of all four of them. I am, after all, a romantic. Simple right? Not so fast. I rewound that vacation plan in my head and infiltrated parts of it with the actual events during those ten days with Alex. Kind of like that old saying–‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.’ I can assure you I am the man that made the plans and as for the vacation experience-well, you will determine the rest for yourself.