This is a quick one that I am posting with no third-party editing. The usual group that 1*Bombs me should feel free to continue doing so. That is
my
Invitational to you.
Dan Kenner took a sip of bourbon and picked up his iPad. He had received a text from his wife telling him that she would be again working late and that he should get dinner on his own. Dan was a man who liked to plan. Since he had an evening to himself, Dan's plan consisted of grabbing a cheeseburger at Whataburger and spending the evening with Lee Child's latest Jack Reacher novel and a bottle of Milam and Greene 13-year-old bourbon that had been gifted to him by his father-in-law. He had been saving the bottle for the right time and this evening promised to be that time. Dan took another sip of bourbon and set his iPad down on the end table as he savored the 111-proof amber fluid while ruminating about his current situation.
Kendall, Dan's wife of six years had been working a lot of overtime over the last six months. At the beginning of their marriage, they agreed to put an equal amount each month into their joint checking account to pay bills and fund their vacations, but personal savings, checking, and retirement accounts were kept completely separate and neither had access to each other's accounts. As a salaried employee, Kendall's income was not increased by the additional hours so whether Kendall worked forty hours a week or sixty hours a week, her income stayed the same. With separate personal accounts, Dan had not known whether Kendall was earning a little or a lot with her overtime hours. The amount they each contributed to their joint account was much more than needed for expenses and the balance had grown considerably.
This separation of accounts was something that Kendall had insisted upon before they were married. Dan's business was struggling due to a poor overall economy when he and Kendall first met and there were weeks and months that Dan refused to pay himself. That's the thing about owning a business; the garbage man gets paid before you do. Dan refused to lay off any employees and went further and further into his personal savings to keep the promise to himself that no one would lose their job. It was one step in front of the other; trudging through life and as he would close his shops as night fell, all he found was himself another day older and deeper in debt.
Kendall was decently paid as a staff accountant for a Fortune 500 business and kept herself removed from Dan's business. She was afraid of his company failing during this time and kept it at arm's distance. Dan had lived off savings during these lean years to not put a burden on Kendall and while he sometimes struggled to meet his obligations to fund their joint account, he always was able to put his share into the account knowing that the storm would eventually pass.
Dan was able to not only weather the storm but thrive. The collection of three auto repair shops that he had inherited from his father had grown into a small chain of twelve locations over the last couple of years. He had taken options on land that would see the chain grow to twenty locations over the next three years. The shops were all operating well in the black but Dan had deliberately kept his salary as low as possible and plowed the profits back into the business. Tire equipment that was able to mount and balance every size tire on every type of wheel, no matter how exotic had been purchased for every location. State-of-the-art diagnostic equipment meant that his technicians could diagnose and repair drivability concerns on almost every vehicle made in North America, Asia, and Europe. Except for France, because fuck a bunch of Peugeots.
So, Dan's business was going balls out. Kendall's job was going well. This should have been the happiest time of their lives. But cracks were appearing in their marriage.
This was the second marriage for both Dan and Kendall. Dan's first wife had died when she was hit by an elderly driver while out on her usual early morning run. It was a clear, sunny morning with a bit of an October chill in the air. Due to the morning glare, the octogenarian driving to her doctor did not see Kendall running down the street. The city was repairing a damaged culvert and had torn up the sidewalk forcing Lizzie to run on the street for about twenty feet. That was all it took.
Twenty goddamned feet.
Five seconds of running time and two lives snuffed out. Lizzie did not yet know it, but she was four weeks pregnant when she was struck by the car. This was the second time that tragedy had struck the Kenner household. Dan's mother had died of lung cancer when he was in high school. She had never smoked a cigarette in her life when she developed a persistent cough that she sought treatment for. Eight weeks after her diagnosis, she was gone.
It took Dan months before he could begin his recovery from Lizzie's death. His father installed an acting manager at the shop that Dan managed. This allowed Dan time to grieve for his wife and the child he would never have. Dan might never have recovered if his father had not suffered a fatal coronary while driving home from his office shop one evening. This forced Dan to put aside his pain and focus on the business. People were depending on him for their livelihood.
It was due to a careless accident that Dan met Kendall.
An apprentice mechanic had removed a radiator cap without waiting for the engine to cool down as Dan happened to be walking by. Hot antifreeze sprayed over Dan's chest, necessitating a visit to the emergency room. The emergency room waiting area was crowded with the assortment of ER visitors that most cities saw. Open head wounds, overdoses, withdrawals, and an assortment of injuries and wounds typical of what the ER staff termed, BRI's, short for Beer Related Injuries. The seat next to Dan was empty and Dan himself looked non-threatening, although he looked like he had been doused in some sort of greenish fluid that had an odor that was faintly sweet and unpleasant at the same time. A tall, attractive brunette hopped and limped towards Dan before dropping into the empty seat next to him.
Since the ER was crowded, they knew they were in for a wait. They told each other about their injuries (Kendall had twisted her ankle while going for an after-work run) and gave each other a synopsis of their lives. There was an immediate attraction between Dan and Kendall. Dan had asked her out to dinner and she accepted. They gelled and very quickly became an item. Kendall had divorced her first husband due to his emotional abuse and cheating and from their first date, had told Dan that she had zero tolerance for cheaters. They married fifteen months after meeting.
Dan took a sip of his whiskey and thought about his marriage. What was the old joke? 'We've had a happy marriage for five years. Unfortunately, we got married six years ago.'
For the first few years of their marriage, Dan and Kendall were ecstatically happy. They laughed together. They danced. They made love all the time. They were good together.
The problems started after Kendall completed her MBA and was poached from the bank that had employed her out of college, to work as an accountant for the Fortune 500 corporation for whom she now worked. Dan was supportive of this. He wanted Kendall to be happy and successful.
There came a point that one of the senior vice-presidents was due to retire and the senior director to whom she reported was up for the position. That would leave the SD's position open and Kendall felt that she had a very good chance of being promoted. She just had to show that she really wanted the job.
After a few months, Dan noticed that Kendal was becoming short with him. Nothing he did seemed correct. Kendall started disrespecting his job. To her, he was now just a mechanic. A grease monkey. She started disrespecting him during every conversation. Her constant anger and irritation with her husband were a divisive force in their marriage. Kendall started working overtime to stay away from Dan. When she was home, she was texting on her phone.
Her phone. God how he hated her phone. She was always on her phone. Secretly laughing at the texts coming through. She turned her screen so that her husband could not see who she was texting or what the texts were about. Sleeping with her phone under her pillow.
And then things turned violent.
Kendall had always had a bit of a temper and was quick to anger. This usually resulted in a cutting remark or a pointed barb thrown at the target of her ire. She had always been quick to calm down and make amends when her temper had gotten the best of her and when Dan was the focus of her anger, her contrition resulted in a night of great sex. However, Dan had noticed that her flashes of temper were increasing and lasting longer but without the makeup sex that, in the past had made her temper somewhat tolerable.
A month ago, during an argument that Kendall had manufactured for no good reason, she slapped him. In over six years of marriage, neither Dan nor Kendall had ever raised their hand to each other. But she had slapped him. And it had shocked Dan to his core. The slap had surprised Kendall as well because she immediately apologized and begged forgiveness. But then came the coffee cup incident.
A week after the slap, Kendall was yelling at Dan because the oil change light on her BMW had come on and he had not changed the oil. Dan had explained to Kendall (again) that her BMW came with free oil changes for the first three years so it made absolutely no sense for him to change the oil when the BMW dealer would do it for free. Kendall had yelled at Dan, "Just fucking change the oil, asshole!"
That was enough of that bullshit for Dan. "I told you not to buy that car but you just had to have that overpriced, unreliable piece of German crap. So now that you have it, it's up to you to maintain it. You schedule your own service appointment at the BMW dealer. This is on you."
Kendall had become enraged. She picked up her coffee cup and hurled it at Dan's head. If he had not ducked, the phone would have hit him dead center of his forehead. He stared at Kendall in shock. She stared back at him with no expression on her face before turning on her heel and walking away without saying a word.
Dan took another sip of his whiskey. He could hear the garage door opening signaling Kendall's return home. Dan picked up his cell phone and sent the text and the email he had queued up. They were redundant and going to the same person and contained the same packet of information so it did not matter which one was received first or if one of them failed to get through. Dan was a firm believer in backup plans. As Tennessee Ernie Ford had sung so long ago, "If the right one don't get you, then the left one will."
As Kendall walked through the living room, she glanced over at Dan, comfortable in his easy chair with a glass of whiskey in his hand.
"I'm going to change and then I need to ask you about some strange activity on the joint account." Kendall did not wait for Dan to acknowledge her statement as she marched to the bedroom. A couple of minutes later, Dan heard the shower turn on.
Both Dan and Kendall had configured notifications on their bank apps to notify them of unusual activity. Dan had received the same text notifications that Kendall was no doubt concerned about. He sighed, took a sip of his bourbon, and set his iPad aside as he waited for Kendall's return.
Which she did fifteen minutes later, wearing black yoga pants and a white midriff-baring t-shirt as she plopped down on the sofa facing Dan. Her hair was wet and slicked back from her shower and although she had not reapplied any makeup, she was a stunningly beautiful woman. Her body was lean and athletic, topped by a pair of c-cup breasts that were at present, unencumbered by a bra.
"Do you know about these deductions from the joint account?" she asked. There was a slight accusatory tone in her voice. She held up her cell phone to Dan. Their bank's app was open to the check activity of their joint checking account. The balance displayed was twelve dollars whereas earlier in the day it had shown over thirty-thousand dollars.
Dan nodded his head. "The twelve thousand ACH debit to PDSC? That's Pendragon Security Consultants. That was to pay them to follow you around for a month and document your affair with your boss. The eighteen thousand ACH to SKD? That was the retainer to Solomon, Klein, and Davis; my divorce attorneys." He took a sip of his bourbon and watched for Kendall's reaction.
Tears came to her eyes and her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water trying to find oxygen. Her face reddened and for a moment, Kendall seemed at a loss for words.
Dan watched as her emotions played across her face. Fear morphing into sadness which turned to anger and then back to fear. She seemed stuck and it was only when Dan picked up his glass to take a sip of his bourbon that she seemed to make up her mind on what to say.
"It didn't mean anything," Kendall said. "I just got caught up in something I couldn't control. I'll end it right now. I don't want a divorce."
