“I wish they wouldn’t, but do you really think my father would do anything else?”
I grinned. “Probably not.”
“You’re going to come visit us, right?”
“Of course. Zayne and I deserve some downtime, and we’re going to take it as soon as we deal with the portal.” I watched Zayne knock the beach ball back to Cayman.
We were going to see all the places we’d talked about. Rome. Edinburgh. The Hollywood sign. Everywhere. And then we would come back here. As of right now, we planned on staying in the area, especially since the Antichrist was around here, somewhere, but maybe we’d leave. We weren’t sure yet, and there was something exciting about having the future so unplanned. It wouldn’t always be easy. I knew that. We had to step back in that school and disrupt the portal. There were the ghosts and Shadow People, and we still needed to figure out how to break the angelic wards holding them there. There’d be more demons who didn’t want to follow the rules and more stupid humans who would somehow do worse than any demonic force could ever carry out. Then there was the Antichrist to possibly deal with and the fact that I could very well still go blind. Things wouldn’t always be safe or fun. There would be risks and nights nothing like this one, but we had each other. We had our friends.
And that was all that mattered.
Sometime later, flames crackled from the firepit. Actual s’mores were being made, and I was in Zayne’s arms, the back of my head resting against his chest as I looked up at the dark sky.
There were no stars I could see, but that was okay. I had the Constellation of Zayne to look upon every night. I would always remember how beautiful the sea of dazzling, twinkling lights was. That memory would never fade. It would always be there when I looked up at the sky. I would always see the stars no matter what, because of him.
Peanut.
My father.
Thank you, Dad. I mouthed the words, giving them no sound, but I think he heard them, anyway.
Thank you.
* * *