Resolution (Mason Family 5)

Paige takes a few napkins off a table and hands him some. They face each other as if they’re afraid to look away. Afraid the other will be gone again.

“I’m working now, and we’re shorthanded,” she says. “I get off at ten. Maybe we could sit here and catch up? I know Nate won’t mind.”

“Yeah. I’ll be back tonight then,” Hollis says.

Paige touches his cheek and bursts out a single laugh. “You’re real.”

Tears come again, and they look at each other. It’s an incredible scene, and there’s not a dry eye at our table.

“Paige! We need you!” someone shouts from the kitchen.

“See you tonight,” Paige says.

“Yes. Of course.”

We all watch the two of them separate like it pains them more than anything in the world. But there’s a peace on Hollis’s face that warms my heart so much that I think it might burst.

I get up and get Hollis’s beer off the adjacent table.

“Here. I think you need this,” I say, handing him the bottle.

The table buzzes with reactions from what just happened. Hollis pulls Larissa into a deep hug.

“It’s funny how things work out, isn’t it?” Wade whispers in my ear. “Things always work out for the best.”

I think about everything we’ve been through—both separately and together. And through the wins and losses, accidents and plans, mistakes and moments of inexplicable loss, we made it. It got us here. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.