Chapter 16

Dennis threw a right hook at the punching bag and listened to the satisfying rattle of the chains. A left jab came next, followed by a series of rapid punches. Sweat poured down his forehead and into his eyes, but he continued to punish the bag.

Finally, when his arms were spent, he stepped back and doubled over, his sides heaving with exertion.

When he could manage to stand up straight again. Two days had officially passed since Linda had walked away from him in front of their dream house. The more time slipped by, the less likely it was she could get right with his lie by omission.

The rage he’d been directing at the punching bag for the past hour was aimed at himself. There were no excuses to fuck up so spectacularly this time around, he had learned the tools to communicate with Linda and he hadn’t used them.

He would have continued whaling on the bag indefinitely, but he heard an ‘oof’ and found Paul Olson wincing on the other side.

“I’m fine,” Paul wheezed. “I should have known better than to walk behind the bag while you were trying to kill it.”

“Time to hit the showers,” said Paul. “We need you at the job site.”

Dennis’s right eye started to throb. “Said I was taking a few days off.”

“Yeah,” Paul said, tugging up his jeans and sniffing. “I need you and you owe me. I’m pulling rank if necessary. Go clean yourself off and let’s head out.”

Dennis let out a long sigh and nodded.

“Come on,” Paul said. “If we don’t get this stonework around the fireplace finished today, we can’t put in the fixtures. And if we can’t install the fixtures, we’re looking at a two-week delay. Minimum.”

All of this sounded ridiculous to Dennis, but his head was having a hard time making sense of basic math right now. His sense of responsibility poked him in the gut until he had no choice but to gift his friend with a curse and stomp toward the locker room to take a shower and change.

They rode in silence, Dennis on the passenger side of Paul’s minivan. Dennis frowned when Paul took a turn to the right instead of going left toward the house they were renovating.

“Where are we going?”

Paul Olson scrubbed at the back of his neck, and, suspiciously, he seemed to be subduing a smile. “Shortcut?”

Something was up. Dennis faced front again, his muscles tightening up when Paul took another right turn toward the lake. Dennis knew this route so well, it was programmed into him.

“I don’t want to go to the house.”

Paul reached over and patted his friend’s shoulder. “I know. Trust me.”

Beyond throwing himself out of a moving vehicle, he didn’t have much choice.

Dennis barely registered the abundance of cars parked on the block because he was too busy remembering what happened the last time he was in that front yard.

Paul climbed out of the van and physically forced Dennis out onto the driveway. He grabbed his arm tightly giving him no choice but to walk toward the front door.

Paul pulled open the front door of the house, and Dennis was greeted by ... applause?

All their friends were there, his boss Percy and his wife Laura with their little girl, Paul’s wife Mary with their two daughters. He looked around and was greeted by the rest of his coworkers with their loved ones. Grace McAllister smiled at him. Her brother Steve was standing at his side with his wife, Diana. Even his therapist was there. He almost didn’t recognize him because he was wearing a suit. His parents were also there in the back. What was going on?

White cloths were draped across the ceilings, wrapped in tiny lights. There were flowers everywhere. Music played softly. He continued to search the sea of faces for the only one he needed to see. The only one he needed to see every single day of his life. He couldn’t find her, though.

Paul grabbed his arm again and led him to an empty room. “We need to change.”

A suit and smoking were resting on a couple of chairs.

“Paul, what’s going on?”

“Shut up and change into the tux,” his friend said and winked at Dennis.

Dennis walked out of the room and a figure appeared at the end of the hallway that led to the backyard. Backlit by the afternoon sunshine, her figure was shadowed at first. She walked slowly into the room.

Dennis stumbled back and covered his face with a hand. Linda was wearing a wedding dress.

The same dress she had worn when they had married at the courthouse. He could only stare, taking in every beautiful detail. Her hair was up and clipped with something shiny; the skin of her face and bare shoulders glowed beneath the strings of lights. In her hand, she held a blue bouquet that, he realized after a glance down, matched a boutonniere that had been pinned to his tux. And she was smiling at him.

Linda’s father stepped out of the crowd and guided Linda toward him, the music began to swell. He could barely tear his eyes off her long enough to notice a man holding a Bible beside him.

This was a wedding.

He wasn’t dreaming. This was real.

What had he done to deserve this?