The Third Wish Read online

  “Mini-muffins, anyone?” Andi said as she came outside. She had a tray with muffins and bacon on it. She passed out little paper plates with napkins, and we each took muffins and bacon. When everybody had some, Andi sat down on the lounger to the left of me.

  “These are amazing,” Lorraine complimented Andi.

  “Thank you,” she replied timidly. Andi wasn’t too good at taking compliments. She was exactly the opposite of Vila in that way.

  “What does everyone have going on today,” Jack piped up.

  “I’m all over the weather tests,” I told him. I looked over at Lottie. “I am going to be holed up for the next few days with some testing we are doing. Sorry.”

  “I’ve got clients coming in from out of town, so I’m on the busy side, too,” Lottie replied.

  “Ah, boo,” Lorraine said, mockingly upset. “I wanted to go shopping, Lottie!”

  Lottie laughed. “Don’t worry. We will have time for that. Sven and Asher can’t get here until next week.” She turned to me almost as an afterthought. “Next week is good for you to get married, right?”

  Everyone laughed before I even had a chance to agree or disagree.

  “Next week is perfect for him,” Andi answered for me.

  “Just tell me when to show up and what to wear, and I’ll be there,” I announced.

  “Honey,” Lorraine said to Jack, “why couldn’t you have been that easy?” She winked at her husband.

  “Because you had to invite three-hundred guests. There’s no ‘easy’ when you involve three-hundred people!” Jack answered.

  “Oh, hey,” Lottie jumped in, changing the subject. “Why did you go to the museum yesterday?”

  In all our morning fun, I hadn’t gotten around to telling her about the attic, or the furniture. While I filled her in, Andi went inside and grabbed more muffins because the first tray was empty. It felt like I lived at a spa, sitting by the ocean in my robe, being served coffee and muffins while chatting with my fiancé. The tale of the shipwrecked furniture amazed Lottie, and she wanted to go see it immediately, which all of us vetoed. Nobody wanted to deal with the dust or the ladder.

  “Just a peek?” Lottie whined.

  “Not now,” I whined back, mocking her. She stuck her tongue out at me and pouted dramatically.

  “It will be great to see them in better lighting,” Jack mentioned. “It’s pretty dark up there.”

  “As long as Tobin isn’t hanging around when the museum gets them down, I’m good,” Andi added.

  “Why would Tobin be hanging around old furniture?” Lottie asked. I told her about his appearance at the museum and his threat to the book again.

  “What a tool,” Lottie said. “I don’t meet many people who are a waste of skin, but I think he qualifies.”

  “Here, here,” Jack agreed, raising his coffee cup. Lottie clinked cups with him, and the two of them chuckled together.

  “Hey, I have an idea,” I said, looking at Andi. “Can you preview a wish to strip the book of its magic?”

  Andi shrugged and glanced at Vila. “I don’t see why not.”

  “Sure,” Vila agreed. She got up and walked behind my chair, laying a hand on my shoulder. I closed my eyes as Andi reached over and put her hand on my other shoulder. They squeezed, and I opened my eyes.

  I was still sitting in the beach yard. I looked around, and everything was the same, and everyone was staring at me.

  “What happened?” Vila nearly yelled at Andi.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing!” Andi yelled back. They both looked at me with wide eyes and confused faces.

  “Should we try it again?” I asked, not sure what to do. The girls had never done any sort of vision magic that didn’t work.

  “I guess,” Vila answered slowly. She and Andi put their hands on me again and squeezed.

  Again, nothing happened.

  “Well, this is just shit!” Andi cried out. “Who the hell is messing with us?” She looked like she was about to cry or like she was scared. I couldn’t tell which. I looked from Andi to Vila and back. I had no way of calming them down. Vila was visibly upset. It looked like her face was turning splotchy red until I realized that my vision was changing.

  “Girls…” I muttered. Then I was standing in the cave with the lightning stones. Actually, it was more like I floated up in a corner, looking down. Something flew into the cave and land on the floor. I squinted and could see that it was the spellbook. Just after it hit the floor, sand spun around to form a wall at the mouth of the cave. When the wall was all the way up, it turned to stone, and the inside of the cave brightened like someone turned a light on. I blinked, and Andi, Vila, and Lottie were staring at me. I was back in the beach yard.

  “Whoa,” I mumbled, trying to get a grip on where I was. My stomach was a little queasy. “How did you do that? That didn’t seem like a wish.”

  “We didn’t do anything, Bennett. We tried, and it didn’t work,” Vila explained. “Then you just passed out. What happened?”

  “I was in the ca—”

  Suddenly, I was back in the cave again, watching from the same place as before. This time as the wall of sand rose up, the book wasn’t anywhere around. When the wall turned to stone, the cave remained dark. Once again, a blink brought me back to reality.

  “Is he okay?” I heard Lottie ask Andi.

  “Yes,” she started. “At least he will be. I think.”

  “You don’t sound too reassuring,” I chuckled and immediately regretted it. My stomach churned, and I nearly vomited.

  “Okay, you lay back,” Vila instructed.

  I rested back into my lounger, closed my eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths to calm my stomach.

  “Where did you go?” Andi asked after I’d rested for a minute.

  “I was in the cave,” I started. “It was like I was up in a corner, just observing what was going on. The first time, the book was in the cave, the wall closed, and the cave lit up. The second time, the wall closed, there was no book, and the cave didn’t light up. It’s so random.”

  “I just don’t know how it happened,” Vila said, sounding worried. “Did the visions you have happen because we were trying to show you a vision, or were they just a coincidence?”

  “I don’t think it was a coincidence,” I told her. “It felt like something pulled me to the cave, not like a vision was being shown to me like you do. I think your wish preview got hijacked, honestly.”

  “By who, if that’s the case?” Andi asked the question none of us had the answer to.

  “Well,” Jack started. “We’re glad you’re still in one piece. Perhaps this all just means you should leave that spellbook alone.”

  “Not a bad point,” Lottie said, sitting back down in her lounger. She looked less worried finally.

  “I’m going to sit right here and do nothing for a bit,” I announced to keep anyone from worrying. “I’m remote monitoring the test site for the next couple of days anyway, so I don’t have to worry about being anywhere else.”

  “Wanna play some poker while we wait for some results?” Jack offered.

  “Hell yeah,” I replied. Of course, he meant a poker game he and I had designed a while back. I hadn’t had much chance to enjoy it, so I was looking forward to the opportunity.

  “I’m glad you’ll have someone watching you,” Lottie added. “I have to be out of here in about forty-five minutes.”

  “Oh, honey, he’ll be fine,” Lorraine whispered to Lottie. “You just get yourself back here so we can finish planning that wedding of yours!”

  Lottie lit up like a kid at a toy store.

  “You’ve got it!” Lottie stood up and kissed me on the forehead. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I assured her. She smiled, kissed me again, and headed into the house. Slowly, the beach yard emptied as the girls went to clean up after breakfast, and Lorraine went back to bed for some additional ‘beauty rest.’ Jack and I ended up in my office,
playing our game for the majority of the day. I felt fine as long as I didn’t move too quickly. I was happy the random visions didn’t continue to happen because it was well into the evening, after dinner, before I felt one hundred percent myself again. I was still able to take the following couple days easy while waiting for my program test results, which meant lots of extra game time with Jack.

  22

  Four days later, Jack and I beat the game. We’d expected some results from our testing to come in before then, but disastrous weather events weren’t cooperating. Two days prior, we had moved the gaming system into the theater and created a whole new experience for ourselves. Of course, we’d both gamed on large screens before, but never anything that big. The experience was that of a giant sitting at a poker table with other giants, drinking monster-sized drinks, and smoking dinosaur-sized cigars. The two of us had to sit at the back of the theater to get a proper view without cranking our necks. When the game was over, we looked around the dark theater, then at each other.

  “Another round?” Jack offered.

  “You just want to play again because you didn’t win!” I told him, laughing.

  “Neither did you!” he retorted. I had come in second, and he was third.

  “True. I’m good for another game, but we’d better make an appearance downstairs before the girls think we are dead,” I replied.

  The two of us made our way out of the theater and blinked to let our eyes adjust to the light. We looked over the balcony down into the foyer. The place was buzzing with activity.

  “Is Lottie throwing another party that she didn’t tell you about?” Jack joked.

  “I hope not,” I replied as we headed for the stairs. When we made it to the kitchen, Andi and Vila were just pulling blueberry muffins out of the oven.

  “Are those ‘just because’ muffins?” I joked. Usually, the girls didn’t bake muffins unless it was breakfast time.

  “These are pre-tomorrow muffins,” Andi informed me.

  “Are we so busy tomorrow morning that you can’t bake them then?” I was curious about their preparedness.

  “Lottie, Lorraine, and the two of us have wedding stuff to go take care of,” Vila piped up. “Speaking of things to do, you gentlemen have an errand to run!” Jack and I looked at each other, both of us with a mild hint of fear in our eyes.

  “What type of errand?” I asked cautiously.

  “We’ve already called Glen, and he’ll be here in half an hour,” Andi let us know.

  “Where are we going?” Jack tried to get some answers.

  “To the airport,” Vila notified us. “Sven and Asher are flying in today.”

  Jack and I looked at each other as the realization hit. Sven and Asher were coming in for the wedding.

  “Question for anyone who thinks it is important that I should know,” I started. “What day is the wedding?”

  Andi and Vila looked at each other and started laughing.

  “The wedding is next week,” Vila replied. “The boys didn’t think they could make it earlier due to some business meeting, but it got rescheduled. They are just going to do a little vacationing before the wedding.”

  I let out a breath I wasn’t aware I had been holding.

  “Don’t worry,” Andi laughed. “You’ll have a day or so of warning before you get hitched.”

  “Oh, I’ll do it anytime. I just want enough advanced notice to at least shower!” I joked. I ran my hand over my four-day-old beard and noticed Jack doing the same.

  “Well, you now have twenty-five minutes to shower before going to the airport,” Andi pointed out.

  Jack and I immediately headed for our respective bedrooms to shower and change clothes. We both looked like different people when we returned to the foyer.

  Glen was right on time, as usual. He made quick work of getting us to the airport and accompanied us inside to wait for Sven and Asher. We had arrived a few minutes early, so the three of us stopped at a little café to grab a cup of coffee. Sven and Asher came walking up to our table just as the waitress set down our cups.

  “Bennett!” Sven hollered, making me jump.

  “Jack, Glen! How are you?” Asher followed up.

  “What are you doing here? Your plane isn’t supposed to be here yet!” I said as I stood up to shake their hands.

  “Oh, that’s the load of bullshit all these guys fed you to get you out of the house,” Sven laughed.

  “Welcome to your bachelor party!” Asher yelled. I looked at Sven and then at Glen.

  “Are you serious? You fuckers set me up!” I shook my head.

  “I didn’t set you up,” Glen replied. “I just drove.” He started laughing and slapped me on the back. “Time to play up being single, one last time!”

  “I thought bachelor parties were supposed to be the night before the wedding?” I didn’t spend much time studying wedding traditions, but I was sure I’d heard that in every movie I’d ever watched that had a wedding in it.

  “Lottie told us that if we waited and got you drunk the night before the wedding, she would murder us all in our sleep,” Asher informed me.

  “I’d believe her,” Jack laughed. “Are we headed out?”

  “Where are we going?” I asked, having no idea where one would go for a bachelor party in a new town.

  “Not for you to worry about, young groom!” Glen said. The five of us walked back through the airport and got into the car. Asher pulled a bottle of vodka out of the bag he’d been carrying on his shoulder. He reached back in and got five shot glasses.

  “Holy shit, are you a traveling bar?” I joked.

  “On occasion,” he answered seriously as he passed me a shot. The vodka was the smoothest I’d ever tasted and went down way too easy. Two shots later, Glen parked the car and opened the door for the rest of us to get out. When I stepped out of the car, I found myself in the abandoned parking lot of a boarded-up, run-down bar.

  “Fancy,” I joked. “What are we doing here?”

  “Living the high life!” Sven yelled louder than I thought was technically necessary.

  Little did I know he was signaling the party to begin. About twenty people came running out from behind the rundown building. A few of them were carrying firewood and started building a fire in the middle of the parking lot. Others began hauling lazy-boy loungers out and setting them around the fire. Individual tables were set up next to each lounger, music started playing from somewhere, and someone had poured drinks before we even sat down.

  After the initial setup, a good number of people disappeared, but five dancers remained. They were tall, blonde, model-types, wearing skirts that left little to the imagination, and bikini tops with thigh-high boots. They flitted around, rubbing our shoulders, sitting in our laps, randomly bending over in front of us.

  “This is most certainly like no other bachelor party I’ve ever been to,” I remarked after one of the dancers ‘dropped’ something in front of me for the third time.

  “Well, strippers didn’t seem your style, but tits and ass are a necessity, so we had to get creative,” Sven replied.

  “It’s perfect, really,” I told him. I held up the whiskey poured for me and looked at each of them. “I appreciate this, gentlemen. It is quite the surprise. I never really saw myself having one of these.”

  “We know,” Jack laughed. “That’s why we did it. You would never have!”

  “Wait, you knew about this?” How Jack could have been a part of it when he had been playing games with me for days confused me.

  “Of course, I did,” Jack told me. “I was wondering when you’d catch on to all the breaks I had to take to pee, or get water, or check the systems, or… or… or…”

  “Ah, hell! I just thought you were old and having bladder problems!” I shot back with a laugh.

  “You son of a bitch,” Jack shook his head. He slapped his leg and started laughing. “I would’ve thought the same thing, now that you mention it.”

  Each of us took a drin
k and reclined, watching the dancers flit about.

  “Where did you guys find this place? It almost looks like we are in the middle of nowhere,” I asked.

  Glen cleared his throat and set his drink down. “It’s mine,” he said, smiling proudly.

  “What do you mean, ‘it’s mine’?” I asked. I looked around to be sure, but all I saw was a nearly condemned building and the parking lot we were sitting in.

  “The wife and I bought it. It’s ours,” Glen clarified.

  I looked at him and raised a brow. “Why?” I meant it as a serious question, but our entire group busted up laughing, including Glen.

  “I know it doesn’t look like anything now, but we are going to turn it into a small bed-and-breakfast with a side of high-stakes poker game,” Glen told me as though that was a normal combination.

  “Poker?” I asked, still not picturing his dream in my mind.

  “Yeah, poker. We noticed that there weren’t any places that offered short-trip business travelers the luxury of five-star accommodations as well as upscale entertainment. So, we decided to build one,” Glen explained.

  I looked at the shack at the end of the lot and tried to imagine the place as a high-end business traveler destination.

  “How about this, Glen,” I started. “I’ll pay you to knock that building down and build a new one?” I was only half-joking.

  “You already are,” Glen said nonchalantly. Everyone stared at him while he took a drink of his whiskey. He put down his glass and looked up. “Why do you think I haul your ass around every time you need to go somewhere?” He busted up laughing, and so did the rest of us.

  “Don’t think you are getting out of me being an investor in your new venture,” I told him. “You’ll be wildly successful, won’t have time for me anymore, and the only time we’ll get to hang out is when Sven, Asher, and Jack fly down here to clean you out of cigars and cheat at cards!”

  “Now that I think of it, you are right,” Glen said, overly serious. “I’ll get you the minimum buy-in paperwork as soon as it’s ready.” He looked at me, straight-faced until he couldn’t hold it any longer, and both of us broke out in laughter. I sat back in my lounger and took a deep breath. As far as bachelor parties go, I couldn’t have asked for a better one. A thought crossed my mind, and I looked over to Jack.