Page 52 of The Aftermath

“Sounds good, man. I appreciate you working on this,” I tell him.

“It was all you, Silas. You did this.” With that, the line goes dead, and Rylan walks up to me.

“Good news?” he asks, nodding toward the phone.

“Fucking great news. They’re willing to meet,” I tell him, watching the smile cross his face.

“No shit?”

“Yeah. They’re going to come out here tonight. I mean, there’s some ground rules obviously but not anything we can’t handle.”

“That’s great fucking news, Silas. I can’t believe you did all this,” he tells me.

“I don’t know. It just felt like the right thing to do.”

“It was. It’ll bring some closure for everyone. And hell, we need a little good in our lives right now anyway.”

“You’ll stick around?” I ask, looking over at him.

“Fuck yeah, we will. We’re family, Silas.”

“Damn right, we are.”

“I can’t believe you actually left me tied under there!” Angel screams as the two of them walk back toward us. I chuckle and turn to face her, catching her in my arms when she throws herself into me.

“You know you liked it,” I tell her.

“Thank God, Tamsyn got me down.”

“You were good. I was coming back.”

“Yeah, when you felt like it.”

“We need to get going anyway. We’re going to dinner, and then I have a surprise for you,” I tell her, leaning down to press my lips to hers.

“What surprise?”

“Really? You want me to tell you what the surprise is?” She beams up and me, and I couldn’t think of anyone else I would want to spend my life with.

“I don’t like surprises.”

“What if it includes my mask?” I ask her. Angel bites her bottom lip and I know she likes the idea of that. She leans in and wraps her arms around my neck before kissing me. When Angel pulls back, I see the smile on her face. She’s happy. She looks happy. And that’s exactly the way I want her to look all the time. I reach down and grab her hand as we start walking toward the hotel we’re staying in with the others behind. I listen to Tamsyn laughing with Ry and it just feels like everything is okay, like things are right now.

I know things will never be the same now Levi isn’t here. There’s just something missing with the four of us and I hate it will never be the same again.

We make it back to the hotel and head inside when Angel goes to the bathroom to shower first. I drop down onto the couch and sigh, throwing my arm over the back.

“You okay?” Tamsyn asks me.

“Yeah. Everything is good. You?”

“I am. It feels a little strange without Levi here.”

“I was thinking the same thing. It’s never going to be the same without him.”

“Things will get better, right?” she asks and I know she needs to hear it from all of us right now. She needs the reassurance.

“Yeah. Everything is going to be good, Tamsyn. We’re going to scatter his ashes tonight,” I remind her. She nods her head even though she looks a little sad about it. We talked about it, and we all felt like it would be the right thing to do.

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