“Daddy, can I go inside and see my new bedroom?” Sophia asked as she jumped out of the backseat. I clutched my chest, taken aback by how grown up she seemed recently. It was almost the start of first grade, and she was excited to meet her new classmates. She hadn’t had a nightmare since shortly after Peter officially moved in, and it’d been months since I’d heard her come into our room in the middle of the night to make sure Peter hadn’t left.
I scooped Sophia into my arms, spinning her around fast enough Mama warned me she’d just eaten a big lunch and I’d better put her down unless I wanted a mess to clean up. “Of course you can, Soph! Remember, your stuff is set up yet because we just finished unloading the truck.”
“But you painted it purple like I asked you to, right?” She cocked a hip and rested her fists against her waist. “You promised I could have a purple room in the new house instead of the baby room I had before.”
The Peter Pan phase had officially, blessedly, ended a few months ago, when Sophia proclaimed she was far too old to be into little kid stuff anymore. I think the entire family breathed out a collective sigh of relief at that news.
“Yes, your room is the exact color you picked out,” I reassured her.
Peter gave me a gentle shove, telling me to take her inside while he helped Mama get dinner into the house. She’d insisted on cooking a big family meal since this was the one day all of us were away from the restaurant at the same time. Things had been going well with Carlos working as my assistant and Tabatha helping Tony run the front of the house.
A crash inside followed by cursing sent me running ahead of Sophia, ready to cuss out Matteo for whatever he just broke. And I knew damn well it was Teo, because it wasalwayshim. I stopped short when I noticed him on his knees, scooping up pieces of a broken pie plate.
Before I could open my mouth to lecture him about being more careful, I Peter stilled me with a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s okay, Freddie,” he whispered into my ear. But it fucking wasn’t okay. That had been a peace offering of sorts from Silvio, handed over on Peter’s birthday. It had been one of his Mama’s favorites, and as Silvio sat in the living room of my old place after an awkwardly silent lunch, he began to open up about how he’d loved hearing Peter tell him stories about baking in the kitchen with Teresa.
By the time he left that night, a bit of the ice between father and son had begun to thaw. I wasn’t sure he’d ever be comfortable with Peter’s defiance of gender expectations, but the old man was trying and that was something. In fact, he and the Agnelli sisters would all be joining us a bit later for dinner.
“I’m so sorry, Peter. I didn’t mean to drop it,” Matteo sobbed. Levi dropped down in front of Teo, gripping his chin and forcing him to look up. I couldn’t hear the words he said, but as he spoke, Matteo began to unwind a bit and his tears dried up. He nodded once before standing and coming over to us.
Peter laid a hand on Matteo’s shoulder. “I’m not angry, Teo. It’s just a pie plate.”
“But it was your Mama’s, and I know it was special to you,” he said, fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt the way he did whenever he was upset. “I should’ve been more careful. I should’ve let someone else unpack that box.”
Peter’s other hand came up to Matteo’s opposite shoulder, and he shook him gently. “Listen to me. It’s okay. Life’s too short to be upset about something as silly as an old baking dish. Just because it’s broken doesn’t mean the memories are gone, and that’s the part that really matters.”
The two men hugged, and I noticed Levi step up behind Matteo. He’d become a fixture in my youngest brother’s life over the past few months and we all hoped he stuck around. No one knew how he calmed Matteo down, all we knew was that Teo seemed more focused than usual, even if there were still the occasional screw ups.
“Freddie, do you mind if I take him to the guest room for a few minutes?” Levi asked, already gripping Matteo’s hip to lead him away. “There’s a lot going on and I think he needs a few minutes to unwind.”
“You arenothaving sex in my house before I do,” Peter teased, causing Matteo’s entire face to burn cherry red. “Go on. We all understand that sometimes you need to decompress. I think Tony and Enzo already have the bed set up in there.”
As they walked away, Peter rested his chin on my shoulder. “I hate how wound up he gets sometimes. It’s good that he has Levi to ground him.”
“Yeah, it is.”
Sophia called out from the bottom of the stairs, telling me to hurry up. I took Peter’s hand, wanting him to be part of the big reveal.
Since he’d moved in, Peter had become the best co-parent I could ever ask for. He’d decided against rushing into another job and was using part of his inheritance from Teresa’s death to pay for college courses. Every day, he waited in front of the school to pick up Sophia, and the two of them stopped by Marino’s at least once a week for dinner. On the nights I got done early, I’d come home and the three of us would walk to the park before bed.
That’s not to say we didn’t have our fair share of growing pains, but every day I loved him a little more, and I couldn’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him.
A few hours later, I questioned whether we should’ve bought a bigger house. With all the Agnellis and their significant others, Mama, my brothers, plus Calvin, Ryan, and Levi, the house seemed filled to bursting. It was too loud and too crowded, and yet it was exactly as it should be.
I let out a shrill whistle to get everyone’s attention. In an instant, the room went silent. Sophia joined me and we walked together to stand by Peter. “I want to thank everyone for coming over today to help us celebrate the new house. If you’d told me a little over a year ago that we’d be standing here like this, two families with so much shared history under one roof, I’d have said you were insane.
“I know it hasn’t always been easy, but the one value our parents instilled in all of us is a strong sense of family.” I paused, swallowing around the lump in my throat as I remembered some of the harder times of the past year. For all my bluster about family being more than blood, I hated how much Peter hurt when Lucia seemed like she’d never forgive him. But eventually, even she’d come around and they’d begun very slowly mending fences.
I turned my attention to Peter, drowning out everything in the world but him. “Peter, you were my first best friend. You showed me what it meant to love before I understood the concept, then again when I’d given up on ever finding it for myself. We’ve built countless memories over the years and I want to create even more.”
I dropped to one knee and wrapped an arm around Sophia’s back. I was so damn proud of my girl for managing to keep this a secret. After I’d wandered past a jewelry store and spotted a band I knew Peter would love in the window, I knew I had to ask her if she was okay with me marrying Peter. She would always come first, but it’d been a calculated risk to tell her about my plans because she always forgot to keep surprises to herself when she got excited. “Peter Silvio Agnelli, will you marry us?”
The room immediately broke out in cheers and whistles. Only Peter’s teary nod as he tackled us to the floor told me he said yes. We took turns kissing one another, chastely because we weren’t alone, and then kissing our daughter.Ourdaughter, not mine. From this moment on, Peter would always know both of us belonged to him.
What seemed like forever later, we finally closed the door behind Tony and Enzo, who’d insisted on sticking around long enough to help us get the beds set up so we all had somewhere to sleep tonight. I slumped against the wall next to the door and let out a sigh of relief. For the past month, I’d been obsessing over everything about today: moving, whether Sophia would have issues with me uprooting her from her friends, and most importantly, proposing to Peter. But it’d all gone off without a hitch.
“You ready to go to bed?” Peter asked, curling a hand around the back of my neck. He pressed me against the wall, kissing me deeply, grinding his hips against mine. We were both already painfully hard, and I was grateful the layout of our new home put a little distance between our room and Sophia’s, because I knew how I wanted to end tonight, and I had no intention of being quiet. “I have a surprise waiting for you upstairs.”
