“Ididn’t think you’d be nervous,” Linc says as he stands beside me with Wilder on his other side. The assholes scrub up well, but it took bribes to get them to agree to wear a dress suit and shirt. We got custom navy suits with white shirts, no ties, and brown shoes.
“It’s not like she’s going to ditch you at the altar,” Wilder adds.
“That girl is crazy about you,” Linc says. “I’m really happy for you, man. You got the girl.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I can’t keep the grin off my face.
“Sydney is an amazing woman,” Wilder says. “Watching you two together makes me realize I want that too.”
“Any man who says he doesn’t want that is a goddamn liar,” Linc agrees as I catch Anvil’s eye.
His nine-year-old daughter is his date today, and she looks cute as a button. I spotted Angelica playing with Ryder’s daughter Etta as we were making our way to the top of the aisle a short while ago. They’re close in age, so it’s no surprise they’ve made friends.
After some soul searching, therapy, and many discussions with Sydney, I reached out to Anvil at the start of the year. We met up in New York and had a long conversation, thrashing everything out. My mother messed him up pretty bad, and he’s carrying a lot of baggage from the things she did to him when he was still a child. He has struggled to accept it as rape when he felt like he wanted it at the time. But it was obvious from speaking to him that she brainwashed him to a certain extent. It was also obvious he needed help, and I couldn’t walk away from him.
He apologized to me for the part he played in splitting Sydney and me up. He has since apologized to Sydney too. We made the decision as a couple to forgive him and to help him.
He knocked up his now ex-wife when he was high, strung out, and down on his luck. In many ways, he said his daughter saved him. His family refused to help, so he got a job, married the girl, and tried to make a go of it. But they were ill-suited, and he was miserable. He found out she was cheating on him just before I came back into his life, and he was living in a shitty motel and fighting her for joint custody of Angelica.
I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. With John’s help, we hired him a kick-ass lawyer in New York who handled his divorce and won him joint custody. Sawyer and Xavier put him up in their Manhattan penthouse, which was lying idle at the time, and they refused to take any rent.
After his ex fled overseas with her rich lover, abandoning their daughter, he went to court and was granted sole custody. Then Ryder stepped in with an offer of a job as a backing singer with the label. Anvil moved to L.A. in April, and things are working out great for him and his daughter. Torment Records is even paying for Anvil to attend a part-time sound engineering course.
My Bel Air house was empty, and I offered it to him. He refused at first, but I insisted he move in until he’s saved up enough for his own place. The property market in Cali is a nightmare with people leaving the state in droves. I don’t want to sell my house as we still need an L.A. pad for when we’re in the city, and it makes sense for him to stay there. As far as I’m concerned, he can stay there for as long as he likes. But Anvil is proud, and he doesn’t want to rely on me for everything. He’s told me often how grateful he is for our help, proving he’s a much different person from the cocky, hotheaded, rebellious guy from high school.
We stay at the house when I’m needed in L.A., and I had an art studio built for Sydney as well as an outdoor playground for Angelica.
I’m hoping one day our kids will join her on the playground. I plan to talk to Sydney on our honeymoon to see if she’s ready to get rid of birth control. I won’t force her, but I’m dying to have kids with her. We’re twenty-seven, and I feel it’s a perfect age to start a family.
“Dude, you’ve zoned out.” Linc snaps his fingers in my face, drawing me back into the moment.
“I did.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Tossing Syd’s birth control.”
Wilder chokes on a breath, and I smirk. “You don’t mind if we bring kids on tour, right?” The US leg of our tour kicks off in ten months, so it’s possible we might have a baby on board by then.
“I fucking love kids,” Linc says, surprising the shit out of me. “We can get you your own tour bus, and we’ll equip it with all that baby shit and stuff.”
Wilder and I stare at him like he’s grown horns.
“What?” He looks upset. “You don’t think I’m a family man? As soon as I find the right girl, I’m on that shit.”
At least he seems to have moved past his fixation on Presley Kennedy, which I’m counting as a win.
“Maybe you need to quit the groupies,” Wilder says as my gaze wanders over the ground.
I smile at a host of familiar faces. All the owners of Torment Records are here with their families. Our assistants, PR people, and other business associates are here too. My lawyer has proven invaluable this past year, so he scored an invite. It was nice to meet his wife and adult kids.
I nod at Sawyer and Xavier as they chat to Ashley and her husbands Ares, Jase, and Chad. Sydney’s brothers are here with their families as is my sister Heather with her husband and kids. Gemma and Francesca, from the gallery in Italy, both look starstruck as they sit beside Ryder and his kids.
I invited a small number of celebrity friends because we chose to keep the wedding small rather than have a massive one. I let Sydney make all the decisions though I was still involved. Like with all the modifications she made to the house, Sydney wants our decisions to be jointly made. We’re a real team in every sense of the word, and I really hope she’d hurry the fuck up and get here so I can marry her already.
The thought has only just popped in my head when the wedding march starts, signaling it’s showtime.
A hush settles over the crowd as it kicks off. Oohs and aahs ring out as Carrie and Jamie walk down the aisle. Jamie is carrying the ring cushion, and Carrie is having great fun throwing rose petals from a basket. Next up is a glowing Cayenne. Pregnancy and marriage really suit her, and it’s good to see her happy. She’s spoken with Anvil, and they cleared the air over the past. I spot him smiling at her as she walks past.
