The Morning After (T.O.N.S Sequel)

Chapter 52.

~Bethany~

Nearly a week had passed since the incident at August's house when someone apparently broke in.

Well it wasn't technically a break in since they somehow used a key.

Anyway,  August hadn't spent much time away from Angel and I, as well as Nathan.

We had all been on edge and August and I had definitely been butting heads as a result.

"Ready?" 

I glanced up at August then refocused on tying my shoes before replying, "Yep."

"So listen," He said after a moment of silence. "I wanna apologize for being rude the past few days. I know we're all stressed just tryna stay safe, so I'm sorry." 

I gave a brief petty nod. I understood where he was coming from so I'd already forgiven him, but I didn't feel the need to give him that pleasure yet.

I did, however, have a question for him.

"What are we gonna do?"

"I already told you," He started; I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion, "You break up with Nate, we do our thing, Angel has both parents. Easy." 

"Boy. First of all, shut up." I rolled my eyes. "Second, I'm being serious. I meant this whole mess of a situation we're in. It's not just about you and I anymore."

"I'm aware. It's complicated, but just know I'm working on it, aight? I don't want you to worry about it."

I scoffed.

"You expect me to sit and just wait for the men to work it out when the majority of this shit is tied to me?"

"Let me rephrase: I don't want you stressed about it. That's not to say I'm gonna hide anything or keep you out of the loop. My main focus is keeping all my girls safe. And I mean, yeah Nate too I guess, but y'all are always the priority. SO if any shit goes left again to where I had to be separated from y'all, whether that be prison or six feet under..." He paused. "Shit like that upsets me to think about. I'm gonna do everything to avoid that. Trust me."

"It upsets me too August but hell. There's only so much power and control we actually have."

"I know, I know." He nodded sadly, before clearing his throat. "We should go." 

He reached forward and helped me put on Ang's other shoe before picking her up, to which she started laughing immediately.

After a quick run to the store with two grown men damn near attached to my hip, we returned to the hotel room.

While we were sitting down eating dinner, Nate's phone rang and he excused himself before disappearing through the attached hotel door into our room.

"Ma." 

"Yeah baby?"

Angel shook her sippy cup at me.

I opened the top of her sippy cup and went to pour some bottled water into it when she started whining.

"You already had a whole cup of juice Angel, cut it out." I scolded her, to which her whines grew in volume.

"No ma'am, cut it out like your mama said." August said. "Here."

He filled about half of the cup with some more juice and moved his hand toward me; I filled the rest of the cup with water and he put the top back on before handing it to her.

She huffed but tilted it towards herself to drink it.

"I was thinking, I wanna get full custody of Serena. After all this shit dies down. Sylvia done lost her damn mind."