Page 86 of Angels Fall

“I did. Got it. OK. Sorry that your free will was malfunctioning that night.”

She smirks and says, “Suck a dick.”

“Is that what you’re into?” I smile at her and bounce my eyebrows.

“Dork,” she says.

Holy shit, this is great! I feel so… Normal. I can’t believe it. I mean, if I step back and try to look at everything, I can’t believe all that’s happening.

Mostly because it feels…good. I’ve been pretty much on the run for the last dozen years, trying to find I dunno what. This. This feeling. And then, suddenly, here it is. I found it back where I started.

Shit. That’s so hilariously cliché that it’s cliché to even point out that it’s so cliché. But fuck it. It is what’s happening. And I don’t feel like running now. So I’m just gonna sit back, enjoy it, and not examine it too closely. In my hard-learned experience, when things aren’t all FUBAR, it’s best not to think about them too much and just let ’em be.

I’m shit at doing that, of course. Letting things be. But I’m going to try. Because right now everything is… nice. Which is a word I’ve never used to describe anything ever before.

Which is also nice.

Fingers snap in my face.

“Where’d you go there, buddy?” Maddie asks. I must’ve been rambling. But I can tell I’m smiling, so I don’t care.

“Nowhere. Sorry. What’s up?”

“The club. We have to swing by Pete’s. I need to see if I left them there.”

“You wanna just come stay at my place and we’ll find ’em later?”

“You mean stay at Evan and Robert’s place?”

“You say tomato, I say my place.”

She smiles. “Nah, I should go home. But you go out and get your own place and I will be there every night. I’m sure it’ll be nicer than where I live.”

“Well, that is very much incentivizing me to buy sooner than later. Damn, girl. You ARE really good at real estate shit!”

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes.

I’m an absolute scamp.

Everybody says so.

At this hour of the morning and at the speed I’m driving, it only takes about twenty-five minutes to get back to Vegas, but Maddie’s already dozing off next to me. Of course she’s exhausted.

It’s been a long life for her so far.

I so much love looking at her sweet face with her eyes closed like that that I have to be careful not to drive us off the damn road.

“Mads.” I reach over and nudge her. She stirs and opens her eyes.

“Shit, I fell asleep,” she says.

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,” I chime. Which makes me realize I’m hungry. I’m gonna get some eggs, I think. Possibly also bakey. We’ll see.

“Wow.” She yawns, looking at the sky through the windshield. “The sunrise is amazing.”

“Yeah?” I ask. I hadn’t noticed. I glance ahead to see what she’s seeing.

Except I don’t.