Family Vacation

Note: I didn't have time to color code. I know it's long, but...

 

 

 

I should’ve known we were completely screwed the second Chris uttered two fatal words: “Trust me.” 

Certain phrases in the English language ought to trigger immediate, instinctual panic in any sensible person’s brain. “We need to talk.” “Don’t worry, it’s probably fine.” “The check-engine light just blinks like that sometimes.” And easily the most catastrophic combination of syllables known to humankind: “Trust me, I know a shortcut.”

 

I cut my eyes toward my brother from the passenger seat. “No.”

 

Chris didn't even tap the brakes. His eyes remained locked on the winding two-lane blacktop. “You don’t even know what I was gonna say.”

 

“You were gonna say you know a shortcut.”

 

He glanced over, genuinely caught. “How’d you know?”

 

“Because we’ve been brothers our entire lives, Chris. Every single time you say the word ‘shortcut,’ I end up in a location that has never appeared on an official state map.”

 

From the backseat, my seventeen-year-old son Elias leaned forward between our headrests, resting his chin on his crossed forearms. “Dad’s right.”

 

“Thank you, son.”

 

Chris gave him a wounded glare in the rearview mirror. “Whatever happened to honoring your elders, Elias?”

 

Elias shrugged without blinking. “I honor Dad. You’re just older.”

 

I smiled. Chris jabbed an aggressive index finger at the windshield. “I am the captain of this vessel. I’m the one driving.”

 

Luca, sitting beside Elias in the back, finally lowered his phone. “And that, Christopher, is precisely what is horrifying every single one of us.”

 

“Et tu, Luca?”

 

“Do not quote Latin when you are lost in the sticks.”

 

“I am not lost!”

 

I turned my head and stared out the passenger window. It was corn. Wall-to-wall, horizon-to-horizon, suffocating green corn. Tall stalks on our left, tall stalks on our right, an unbroken wall of vegetation ahead, and presumably another unbroken wall choking off our retreat behind us.

 

“Chris,” I said slowly, enunciating every syllable. “We have been driving through corn for forty-five uninterrupted minutes.”

 

“It’s an agricultural region.”

 

“We’re going to a massive, commercial amusement park.”

 

“It’s an agricultural amusement park!”

 

Elias chimed in again, deadpan. “What’s the signature ride? The Cornhusker? The Sickle of Death?”

 

I reached back and pointed right at him. “See? Sharp kid. Natural comedic timing.”

 

Chris slapped the steering wheel with an open palm. “Everybody just shut up for five seconds. I know where we’re going.”

 

Right on beat, the GPS dashboard voice chimed with smooth, robotic indifference: “In one quarter mile, make a U-turn.”

 

Dead, heavy silence dropped over the car like a wet wool blanket.

 

I turned my head very, very slowly toward my brother. He was staring dead ahead, his knuckles white against the steering wheel’s faux-leather wrap. In the backseat, Luca clamped an entire hand over his mouth to muffle a gasp. Elias dissolved into quiet, wheezing laughter.

 

I let the silence breathe, waiting. Finally, Chris cleared his throat. “The GPS is wrong.”

 

“Right. Naturally. A billion-dollar navigational grid failed, but your gut instinct is pristine.”

 

“It doesn’t know these rural access roads, Dan.”

 

“Chris, it’s run by satellites.”

 

“So?”

 

“Satellites in actual outer space!”

 

He flicked a dismissive hand. “Orbital decay. Solar flares. Tech glitches happen all the time.”

 

The GPS chimed again, flat, and unrelenting: “Make a U-turn.”

 

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hear that? She’s getting annoyed with your stubbornness.”

 

“It’s a computer program.”

 

“She’s actively judging your life choices.”

 

“Computers don't judge people!”

 

The GPS immediately cut back in: “Recalculating route.”

 

Elias lost his mind, slumping sideways into the door frame with laughter. Even Luca couldn't maintain his dignified composure anymore and let out an undignified snort. Chris muttered something dark and profane under his breath.

 

“What was that?” I asked.

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Sounded like you just cursed out the United States Space Force.”

 

“I didn't curse out the satellite, I cursed out the automated voice!”

 

“Oh, well that’s much more psychologically sound.”

 

The ridiculous thing was that this trip was supposed to be a total mental reset. No wrestling rings. No heavy championship belts. No grueling promotional junkets. No ring psychology. And definitely, under strict household orders, no obsessing over what had gone down in the Netherlands two weeks prior.

 

That last rule had been Luca’s doing. In truth, the entire getaway was Luca’s idea.

 

After dropping the World Heavyweight Championship match to Danny B, I had spent the better part of a week walking around our house pretending I was completely fine. I insisted I wasn't angry. I wasn't depressed. I wasn't sulking. I was just... quiet.

 

Way too quiet if you asked Luca. In his medical opinion, nursing the same ceramic mug of lukewarm coffee while staring blankly out the kitchen window for forty-five minutes straight fell squarely under "deeply concerning psychological avoidance." I considered it healthy, stoic contemplation. Luca called it brooding. Chris called it "pulling that Batman routine again." Elias just called it a standard Tuesday afternoon.

 

So, Luca put his foot down, took charge of the calendar, and booked a family road trip. Nothing pretentious or overly planned—just a giant theme park and lakefront resort roughly four hours away. The itinerary was idiot-proof: get there, check into a comfortable suite, ride excessive roller coasters, consume an irresponsible volume of fried park food, publicly humiliate Elias in front of his peers, and drive back home recharged. Simple.

 

Except Chris volunteered to drive. That was number one error. Error number two was allowing him to override the interstate navigation in favor of his "scenic bypass."

 

“Turn left,” Luca directed from the backseat, staring down at his map application.

 

Chris squinted through the windshield at the endless rows of corn. “There is no left.”

 

“There was one.”

 

“When?”

 

“About two hundred yards back.”

 

“Why didn't you speak up then?”

 

“I did!” Luca snapped. “You were too busy having a screaming match with a satellite!”

 

Elias let out a dramatic, theater-kid sigh. “This is literally how every backwoods slasher movie starts. We break down, a cannibal in overalls shows up, and Dad tries to powerbomb him.”

 

I glanced back at him. “No, horror movies start with teenagers making terrible decisions.”

 

He gestured broadly at the corn maze outside his window. “Dad, look around. We’re knee-deep in terrible decisions.”

 

He wasn’t wrong.

 

Eventually, Chris found a dusty gravel tractor turnaround and hauled the SUV around in a messy three-point turn. By the time, our tires finally bumped back onto the smooth asphalt of the interstate twenty minutes later, the GPS cheerfully informed us that our estimated arrival time had been pushed back by fifty-seven minutes.

 

I nudged Chris’s shoulder. “Great shortcut, man. Saved negative one hour.”

 

“A minor routing discrepancy.”

 

“Almost sixty minutes, Chris.”

 

“Look, it could’ve been worse.”

 

“Enlighten me. How?”

 

He paused, visibly calculating the possibilities. “We could’ve run out of gas in the dirt.”

 

Right on beat, a harsh chime sounded from the instrument cluster, and a bright orange low-fuel indicator illuminated like a neon sign.

 

Nobody made a sound.

 

Chris stared at the dashboard. I stared at Chris. Behind us, Luca and Elias both leaned their heads forward into the gap between our seats to stare at Chris.

 

“Don’t start,” Chris warned quietly, his eyes widening.

 

I reached out and tapped the plastic cover over the fuel gauge. “The digital range says you’ve got seventeen miles left on this tank.”

 

“I have eyes, Dan.”

 

“Luca,” I said without looking away from my brother’s profile. “Where’s the nearest gas station?”

 

Luca checked his phone, zoomed in, and sighed. “Twenty-two miles.”

 

A slow, vicious grin spread across my face. Chris clenched the steering wheel so hard his knuckles popped.

 

“Don't do it,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

 

“‘Trust me,’” I quoted in a falsetto voice.

 

“Dan.”

 

“‘I know these roads, Dan!’”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“‘It’s a scenic rural amusement park, Dan!’”

 

“DAN.”

 

Elias raised his right hand like he was in homeroom. “I’d just like to officially state for the record that I backed Dad from mile one. When the inquest begins, I am state’s evidence.”

 

“Duly noted, son. You'll be spared.”

 

Chris stared grimly through the glass, his jaw ticking. “I hate every single occupant of this vehicle.”

 

We rolled into that gas station running on pure mechanical prayers. The digital range indicator had stopped showing mileage entirely, flashing a stark, blinking empty warning for the last four miles, but somehow the fuel pump drew enough vapor to crawl up to pump number four. According to Chris, he had calculated the engine’s fuel-trim efficiency perfectly in his head. According to the rest of us, he was officially stripped of driving privileges for the rest of his natural life.

 

The stop was one of those colossal highway travel plazas that hawked everything from premium unleaded to smoked meats, hunting knives, cheap fleece blankets, and rusted metal signs with folksy quotes—the kind of random junk you only ever buy when you're completely delirious at 2:00 AM.

 

Elias drifted into the apparel aisle and immediately crowned me with an absurd, wide-brimmed straw cowboy hat with a fake turquoise band. “It really brings out your brooding intensity, Dad.”

 

“Take it off.”

 

Luca already had his camera app open and snapped two quick photos. “Keep it on, it’s high art.”

 

“Delete that right now, Luca. I have an athletic brand to maintain.”

 

“Not in this county, you don't.”

 

Right then, Chris strutted around the endcap sporting a black felt Stetson that was twice as large as mine, looking like a caricature of an oil baron. We locked eyes across the aisle.

 

Elias instantly started filming video. “Oh, here we go.”

 

“Absolutely not,” I said, taking a defensive step back.

 

Chris dropped his hands down near his hips, hovering over an imaginary holster like an extra in a spaghetti western. “Town ain't big enough for the two of us, Dangerous Dan. Draw.”

 

“I’m not doing a gas-station quick-draw with you, Chris.”

 

“Coward! You’ve headlined pay-per-views! Act like a man!”

 

“That doesn't even make contextual sense!”

 

“DRAW!” Chris bellowed, dropping into a dramatic stance.

 

The weary clerk behind the counter finally leaned over the register, rubbing his temples. “Hey! Big guys! Please do not do whatever you're doing in the retail area!”

 

I whipped the straw hat off my head. “Thank you, sir.”

 

The cashier pointed a stern finger at Chris. “You too, Wyatt Earp.”

 

Chris took off his hat with agonizing slowness, shaking his head. “Modern society has lost its romantic edge.”

 

We cleared out the snack aisles with the frantic energy of people who had just survived a desert crossing. Elias sweet-talked me into an absurd five-pound bag of gummy bears, Luca secured two high-end iced coffees, and Chris bought three distinct varieties of artisanal beef jerky before circling back for a fourth bag of habanero sticks.

 

I eyed his haul at the register. “Are you preparing for an electromagnetic pulse?”

 

“It’s protein. It’s road fuel.”

 

“We are forty-five minutes from our hotel!”

 

“It’s called foresight, Dan.”

 

“Foresight? You literally almost stranded four people in a corn labyrinth because you didn't look at the gas gauge!”

 

“Drop it.”

 

“Never. It’s going on your tombstone.”

 

We finally rolled into the resort grounds just as the late-summer sun was melting into an orange haze along the tree line. The complex was genuinely impressive—massive wooden coaster trestles twisting through the pine trees, bright neon signs glowing near the park gates, music drifting across the parking lot, and families swarming the pedestrian plazas. For once, Chris had actually navigated us to an intended location. I was almost ready to forgive him.

 

Then we hit the front desk.

 

The young woman behind the counter gave us a polished hospitality smile. “Welcome to the Grand Timber Lodge. Name on the reservation?”

 

I stepped up and gave it to her. She typed briskly, paused, frowned at the screen, and the smile evaporated into a look of professional hesitation.

 

“Uh-oh,” I murmured, leaning on the marble counter. “What’s the pause for?”

 

“I’m having a little trouble finding a reservation under that name for this evening.”

 

Luca slid forward, holding up his phone. “I have the confirmation email right here. Booked through the official site.”

 

She scanned the reference code, typed another sequence, and then looked up with a sympathetic wince. “Ah. Okay. So... your check-in date is actually for next Friday.”

 

Dead air. Absolute, heavy silence.

 

I turned my head toward Luca. Luca was staring at his phone screen like the pixels had rearranged themselves into an insult. Chris slowly took three deliberate steps backward to give himself ample laughing room.

 

Elias whispered, “Outstanding plot twist. Five stars.”

 

“Luca,” I said, keeping my tone terrifyingly gentle. “Did you book us for the wrong weekend?”

 

“I did not book the wrong weekend. I have an advanced degree. I manage our entire household.”

 

The clerk politely tilted her monitor around so he could see the reservation grid. Luca stared at the bolded date, checked his email confirmation, blinked three times, and then slowly looked over at me. “...I booked the wrong weekend.”

 

Chris exploded. He bent double at the waist, hands braced against his knees, wheezing and laughing so hard he sounded like an asthmatic tea kettle. Other guests in the lobby were turning to stare.

 

I pointed an accusatory finger at Chris. “Hey! You got us lost in an agricultural wasteland!”

 

“BUT I BROUGHT US HERE ON THE CORRECT CALENDAR DAY!” Chris howled back, wiping tears from his eyes. “MY SHORTCUT WORKED IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION!”

 

Even the desk clerk had to bite her lower lip to keep from cracking up. Luca pressed his palms into his eyes, groaning. “Do you have anything available for tonight? Any cancellations? Anything at all?”

 

She checked her screen, clicking through several menus. “I have exactly one room left in the north wing due to a late checkout issue.”

 

Four grown men. One room.

 

“Beds?” I asked.

 

She winced slightly. “One king.”

 

Chris’s laughter died instantly, cutting off mid-gasp.

 

I grinned, stepping closer to him. “Something funny, Christopher?”

 

“No. Absolutely not. I’m not sleeping in a king-sized bed with you.”

 

“We shared a bunk bed until high school!”

 

“We were boys! We’re grown, heavily muscled men! I’m not doing it!”

 

Elias looked at Luca. “I’m sleeping in the SUV. I’ll crack the windows.”

 

“Wait,” the clerk interrupted helpfully. “The sofa in that suite is a pull-out sleeper.”

 

Elias pointed at her like she had just granted him a full scholarship. “Dibs. Non-negotiable. I call sofa.”

 

Chris pivoted on me. “Dan gets the floor.”

 

“You’re older than me.”

 

“By four minutes!”

 

“Seniority rules. Floor is yours.”

 

Luca held his hands up in complete surrender. “Look, my administrative error, my penance. I’ll take the carpet with a duvet.”

 

“Don't be ridiculous,” I told him. “Luca and I get the bed. Elias takes the sofa. We’ll call housekeeping and request a rollaway for Chris.”

 

Chris sulked and grumbled for the next forty minutes while we hauled our duffel bags up to the suite. When the maintenance staff finally wheeled in the creaking, thin-mattressed rollaway bed, Chris walked over, crossed his arms, and sat down hard on the edge to inspect it.

 

The center support bracket immediately sheared with a loud crack, folding him up into an inverted V on the floor like a cheap deck chair.

 

I collapsed onto the king mattress, laughing so hard my vision blurred.

 

The next morning, we hit the amusement park early, the morning mist still burning off the lake. The very first attraction Elias dragged us toward was the park’s flagship hypercoaster—a monstrous mountain of yellow steel track that seemed to climb indefinitely into the sky.

 

I stopped dead in my tracks, tipping my head back. Up and up and up. The initial drop plummeted at a near-vertical angle directly toward a concrete tunnel.

 

“Nope,” I said, turning on my heel.

 

Elias grabbed my forearm, grinning from ear to ear. “What do you mean, nope? You haven't even seen the line yet.”

 

“I’ve seen enough. Absolutely not.”

 

“Are you seriously scared?”

 

“Son, I get hurled through folding tables and suplexed onto exposed concrete for a living.”

 

“That wasn't a ‘no,’ Dad.”

 

Chris appeared on my left, a wide, predatory smirk plastered across his face. “Oh, look at this. Dangerous Dan, the pride of the Midwest, the human wrecking ball, is terrified of a couple of steel rails.”

 

“I’m not terrified of anything, you idiot.”

 

“Prove it, then. Get in line.”

 

And that was that—because at least half of male decision-making is just fragile ego dressed up as bravery.

 

Ten minutes later, we were locked in the second row. Elias sat to my right, while Chris and Luca were strapped in directly behind us. The hydraulic safety harness slammed down across my chest with a heavy, pneumatic hiss, locking my shoulders in place. Every poor choice I had ever made in my almost forty-three years on earth paraded before my eyes.

 

The train hitched onto the lift hill chain. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.

 

I glanced over the side as we cleared the treetops. The people walking along the main concourse looked like tiny, colorful insects.

 

“Elias?” I muttered.

 

“Yeah, Dad?”

 

“If this structure fails, you are grounded for the rest of eternity.”

 

He beamed. “Can’t enforce groundings from the afterlife, old man.”

 

“Don't tempt me.”

 

We crested the summit. For one agonizing, frozen half-second, the train paused on the precipice, suspended in total weightlessness. Then gravity took hold, and the floor dropped out from under reality.

 

I screamed.

 

It was not a dignified, masculine warrior roar. It was a high-pitched, undignified shriek usually produced by someone who has just discovered a live bat inside their bathrobe. Elias was howling with unadulterated joy beside me. Behind us, Chris was screaming bloody murder too—though he would spend the rest of the afternoon insisting he had been "vocalizing high-energy support." I know the sound of mortal terror, and my brother was singing it in four-part harmony.

 

When the train finally slammed into the magnetic station brakes, I stepped out onto the metal platform with rubber legs and seriously considered dropping to my knees to kiss the non-moving floor.

 

Elias already had his phone out, capturing my pale face. “This is going in the family group chat immediately.”

 

“I will legally disown you.”

 

“You don't have the paperwork on you, Dad.”

 

Luca caught up with us at the ride exit, adjusting his sunglasses with an amused grin. “Round two?”

 

“Hell no,” I said.

 

Chris adjusted his shirt, trying to look composed. “I’m game.”

 

I glared at him. “You literally screamed for Mama six distinct times during the corkscrew.”

 

“I was building family solidarity!”

 

“You yelled ‘MAMA!’ like a frightened toddler in a grocery store!”

 

“She’s a very stabilizing force in my life, Dan!”

 

We spent the rest of the day conquering every corner of the park. We rode the spinning flat rides, consumed enough fried dough and sugary soda to permanently alter our blood chemistry, and watched Chris blow sixty-five dollars on a rigged carnival ring-toss game trying to win an oversized stuffed gorilla. When Elias casually walked up and won a stuffed husky on his very first three-dollar attempt, Chris refused to acknowledge his nephew’s presence for forty-five minutes.

 

By late afternoon, my facial muscles actually ached from laughing so much. And right around five o’clock, while carrying a cardboard tray of soft pretzels, a strange realization settled over me: I hadn't thought about the loss in the Netherlands all day. Not once. The bitter knot in my chest had loosened.

 

Then we rounded a corner near the vintage arcade pavilion.

 

Through the glass front, an old arcade cabinet was running an attract loop—two pixelated heavyweight wrestlers trading stiff clotheslines under flashing neon text that read: WORLD TITLE MATCH.

 

The knot slammed shut in my chest again.

 

Danny B. The referee’s hand slapping the mat for the three-count. Fifteen years of broken ribs, torn ligaments, empty motels, and endless travel, all culminating in my shoulders pinned flat while golden confetti rained down for another man.

 

The smile fell right off my face. The pretzels felt heavy in my hands.

 

Luca noticed immediately. He always noticed. He stepped away from Chris and Elias, moving beside me. “You good?”

 

“Yeah,” I said, looking away. “Just... caught my breath for a second.”

 

Luca gave me that familiar look—the quiet, steady one that meant lying to him was a complete waste of oxygen.

 

I sighed, handing him the pretzel tray. “I need twenty minutes. Just going to take a walk.”

 

He nodded, giving my forearm a firm, grounding squeeze. “Take as long as you need. We’ll be near the fountains.”

 

I turned and walked toward the perimeter of the resort, finding a quiet gravel walking path that skirted the edge of the retention lake behind the coaster park. Out here, the screams of the riders were just a distant, rhythmic hum against the breeze. The setting sun was casting a long, crimson path across the ripples of the water.

 

I sat down on a weather-worn wooden bench, resting my elbows on my knees. I took several deep, deliberate breaths, smelling the pine needles and fresh water.

 

Then, driven by an instinct I couldn't ignore, I pulled my phone from my pocket, leaned back against the wood, and held the camera at eye level. I switched to video and tapped the red record button.

 

“Danny B...”

 

My voice sounded different the second I spoke. The playful banter, the goofy vacation ease—it was stripped away completely. What remained was the man who made his living between the ropes.

 

“I’ve had some time to sit with what went down in the Netherlands,” I said, looking straight into the lens. “And look—I could sit here on this bench and feed people a hundred polished excuses. I could break down the referee’s positioning. I could say that if we locked up on any other night of the week, the belt comes home with me. But I’m not gonna do that. You caught me. You beat me clean in the center of the ring with the World Championship on the line.”

 

I paused, letting the reality settle into the recording.

 

“Fifteen years, Danny. I scrapped and bled for fifteen long years just to earn that one marquee opportunity. You know what people whispered during that whole climb? They said my window had slammed shut. They said my style was outdated, that my body was breaking down, that the office was always going to back the younger, shinier athlete. But I didn't listen. I kept my head down, I took the bookings, and I believed. And when I stepped through the ropes across from you, I believed with every drop of blood in my body that I was walking out as champion.”

 

I leaned closer to the phone mic, my jaw tightening.

 

“I didn't. And maybe a lot of folks think that breaks a man. That he packs his gear bag and fades out. But losing to you didn't kill my hunger—it showed me just how desperate I still am for that gold. Someday, Danny, that championship is going around my waist. I don't know the arena, I don't know the date, and I don't care who’s holding it. It belongs to me.”

 

I let the focus shift, my eyes narrowing.

 

“Which brings me to you, Caledonia.”

 

I sat back, steadying my breath.

 

“You’re up next. Don’t you dare take that as an insult, and don’t you ever assume I’m looking past you. It’s the exact opposite. Right now, Caledonia, you are the single most dangerous roadblock in my entire life. Because the road back to the top doesn't start with an automatic rematch. It starts in the dirt, and step one is you.”

 

My tone dropped, steady and cold.

 

“I need this win, Caledonia. Not for Danny B, not for the front office, and not for the internet critics. I need it for myself. I need to prove that the Netherlands wasn't the beginning of my decline. I need to prove that fifteen years of sacrifice didn't peak with one heartbreak. You are facing a man who got close enough to touch the pinnacle of this industry, and it woke up something vicious inside me. I am hungrier than I have ever been. Dangerously hungry.”

 

I tapped the screen, cutting the feed.

 

I sat there for a long moment, staring at the darkened display, listening to the water lap against the shore.

 

“Not bad,” a voice spoke from a few yards behind the bench. “A little melodramatic in the middle, but solid mic work overall.”

 

I turned my head. Chris was leaning against a wooden fence rail, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. Behind him stood Luca and Elias, watching quietly.

 

“How much of that did you catch?” I asked.

 

“Enough to know Caledonia should probably call in sick,” Chris said, stepping forward. He sat down on the right side of the bench. Elias walked around and claimed the left side, bumping his shoulder against mine. Luca stepped up behind us, resting a hand on the backrest.

 

For once, the arrogant smirk was completely absent from Chris’s face. He looked at me with the raw honesty he only showed every few years. “You’re getting another title shot, Dan.”

 

“You don't know that for sure, Chris. Politics in our business are dirty.”

 

“I don't give a damn about wrestling politics,” Chris said, meeting my gaze squarely. “I know you. You don't stay down. You never have.”

 

A faint smile touched the corner of my mouth. “Is this your attempt at sensitive brotherly encouragement?”

 

“Hell no. You’re still an obnoxious pain in the ass.”

 

“There it is.”

 

Elias nudged me again. “You’re taking Caledonia out, Dad. Clean sweep.”

 

“That’s the objective, kiddo.”

 

“And then whoever’s next?”

 

“Line ’em up.”

 

“And then?”

 

I looked at my son. He already knew the answer. “Then I bring that big gold belt home.”

 

Elias grinned, satisfied. “Good.”

 

Chris clapped his hands together with a loud crack, instantly shattering the emotional weight. “Alright, fantastic family moment, highly cinematic, we all felt things. Can we please acquire dinner now?”

 

Luca looked at him in disbelief. “You ate an entire pound of barbecue barely ninety minutes ago.”

 

“I have burned severe caloric energy coping with near-death coaster experiences!”

 

I pointed an index finger at him. “See? I knew that scream wasn't tactical!”

 

“It was completely tactical!” Chris insisted, throwing his arms out as we all stood up from the bench. “I was expelling lung capacity to optimize my aerodynamic profile on the drops!”

 

Elias buried his face in his hands, laughing so hard he stumbled on the path. “Tactical screaming. I’m putting that on a t-shirt.”

 

We stayed in the park until the closing fireworks echoed across the lake. We even conquered the giant coaster one final time—I screamed again, Chris completely lost his composure again, and Luca actually paid twenty-two dollars at the exit booth for the glossy 8x10 photo because Chris looked like his soul was physically departing his ribcage. Elias immediately took a picture of the print and set it as his phone wallpaper. Chris threatened to consult an attorney; we reminded him he still hadn't paid for his gas station jerky.

 

On the walk back to the resort, Chris and I managed to drop our soft-serve ice cream cones onto the asphalt within thirty seconds of each other. Luca just stood under the streetlamp between us, shaking his head at two grown athletic men furiously debating whose dropped dessert was a greater tragedy, muttering, “I have tied my life to absolute madmen.”

 

Late that night, lying in the dark room with Luca’s steady breathing beside me, Elias softly snoring from the pull-out couch, and Chris periodically kicking his broken rollaway bed from his blanket fort on the carpet, the last bits of mental static finally cleared away.

 

The World Heavyweight Championship mattered. It mattered with every fiber of my being, and falling short in the Netherlands had cut deep because the dream was that real. But wrestling wasn't the entirety of my life.

 

Surrounding me in that cramped, chaotic room were the people who would be there whether I was holding ten pounds of gold or hanging up my boots for good. My brother. My son. My partner. My foundation. They weren't going to let me disappear inside a single defeat. Their brand of therapy just happened to require wrong-turn agricultural detours, near-empty gas tanks, administrative booking disasters, and structural furniture collapse.

 

And it had worked.

 

The next morning, we loaded our bags into the trunk under a crisp blue sky. There was zero debate over who took the driver’s seat; the keys were firmly locked in my palm. Chris grumbled from the passenger side, Elias settled into the back with his carnival husky, and Luca took absolute, totalitarian control over the GPS navigation.

 

As the resort vanished behind us in the mirrors, the highway stretched out toward home. Toward the training facility. Toward Caledonia. Toward the next chapter.

 

I didn't know if the climb back to Danny B would take three matches or thirty. In wrestling, just like in life, you don't get promised endings—you only get opportunities, and you either step through the ropes or let the moment pass you by. Danny B won that night. That will always be written in the history books. But it’s just a chapter, not the conclusion. Fifteen years of sweat didn't vanish in one pinfall, and one bad night wasn't going to bury me.

 

Chris glanced sideways at me from the passenger seat, his sunglasses resting low on his nose. “What are you smirking at over there?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Thinking about Caledonia?”

 

“A little.”

 

“Thinking about the strap?”

 

I kept my hands steady on the wheel, eyes on the open road. “Yeah.”

 

Chris cracked a grin. “Good.”

 

From the backseat, Elias let out a long, theatrical groan. “Can we please, for the love of everything holy, go ten straight minutes without discussing professional wrestling?”

 

I looked into the rearview mirror, meeting his eyes with a smile. “Deal. Ten minutes of silence.”

 

Three seconds ticked by on the dashboard clock.

 

Chris turned his whole torso around to face the back. “So, when you counter Caledonia’s lariat—”

 

“CHRIS!” Elias and I shouted simultaneously.

 

“What? I gave it three full seconds!”

 

“That is not ten minutes!”

 

“Time is purely subjective, Dan!”

 

Elias pretended to lunge for the door handle, Luca dissolved into helpless laughter, and Chris immediately began lobbying for another country backroad that could supposedly shave twelve minutes off our drive.

 

All three of us shouted “NO!” before he could even finish the sentence.

 

And as the miles rolled away beneath our wheels, the heavy weight was finally gone. I was heading home. Back to the ring. Back to the grind. Step one is Caledonia.

 

And after that? I’m taking what’s mine. The ENDD is near! Can you feel it?