She reached up and kissed my cheek, smiling at me before sitting down and reaching for her plate. I looked around to make sure that Dom and Van were behaving themselves. Those boys could be little hellions at times - they took after me not only in looks, but in attitude and behavior, according to my mother.
Dom was sitting with Scott and Emma, talking animatedly to his cousin Cole, who was about eighteen months older that he was. Emma was cutting up the food on three-year old Lucy's plate, while Scott held four-month old Lilah, who was sleeping through all the chaos around her.
Van was sitting on Dean's lap, staring intently at his twin two-year-old cousins as Hannah helped them with their drinks. The girls, Vivienne and Gabrielle, were identical twins, a factthat Van really had trouble understanding. It kind of freaked him out that they looked exactly alike, but I'll be damned if he didn't always know which one was which.
My gaze continued moving around the yard, looking at everyone we loved and called family, whether we shared DNA or not.
Gracie was sitting a table with Josh, Min, Micah and Ethan, who was born two months after Van.Josh and Min had gotten married a year after Allie and me, and Josh had happily adopted Micah since his piece-of-shit bio dad hadn't bothered maintaining contact with his son after his divorce from Min.
I narrowed my eyes as I watched Micah lean in and whisper something to Gracie which caused her to blush and giggle. Micah was a good kid, and Gracie had finally decided a couple of years ago that he didn't have cooties after all. I watched them for a few moments, as they traded secrets and giggled to themselves. When Micah offered Grace the last of his potato chips then got up to get her another juice box, I felt a burning in my gut. Oh fuck me, I wasn't ready for this. I recognized that move. After all, hadn't I just done the same thing for my wife? I rubbed my chest as my indigestion kicked in to high gear. Josh caught my eye and smirked, and Min just outright laughed at me as she looked over to see who Josh was looking at. I discreetly flipped them both off, then looked at the kids again and smiled as Micah tried to show off for Gracie by piling a stack of potato chips on his head without dropping them. Josh's goofiness had definitely rubbed off on the kid.
My parents, Allie's parents, and Matt's parents were huddled together at a table. They were all still thick as thieves, and spent a lot of time together "solving the worlds problems" as Steveliked to say. They all doted on the grandchildren, whether their own or someone else's.
I spotted Nonna and Aunt Ellen together, looking at something on Nonna's phone and laughing, then saw Nonna sneaking pieces of her hamburger to Bowie, who was lazing by her feet. Nonna and Ellen had gotten to know each other well, and often got together to swap baking recipes. They drank a lot of wine and watched shows about outlaw bikers and rugged cowboys during these recipe exchanges, too, but I wouldn't dare point that out within smacking range of my Nonna.That woman was still deadly accurate when swinging a wooden spoon, even at the age of eighty-five.
I heard Becca laughing hysterically, and turned around to find Matt wiping what I suspected to be baby spit-up from his hair and his shirt. I grinned at my newborn niece, Lainey, now being cradled in her mom's arms.
"Way to go, Lainey-Lou" I called out, making Becca laugh even harder and prompting Matt to put down the burp-rag he'd been using so that he could flip me the bird with both hands. My other two nieces, four-year-old Nora and two-year-old Ava both giggled, even though they didn't understand what was so funny.It amused the hell out of me that my best friend, manwhore extraordinaire in his bachelor years, was now the father to three girls.
I remembered when he'd had a few beers too many one night while we were sitting around after a show when Nora was just a few months old. We had been on the last night of our new 'two weeks on - two weeks off' touring schedule, and we'd all been missing our families. He'd confessed that he was scared shitless at the idea of raising a daughter.
"How do I do this, guys?" he'd whined to us. "How am I supposed to let my little angel out of my sight when I know how boys are?"
The rest of us had laughed, but he'd been serious. "No, I mean it." He'd turned to me with a desperate look on his face.
"Come on, man, you remember what we were like when we were kids. We were complete horndogs! Twelve years old and we were trying to figure out how to cop a feel of- what was her name...Macy, Marley, you know, the redhead with all the freckles who was the first girl in our class to actually have something to fill out her bra?"
I vaguely recalled the thrill of that first fleeting touch of her bra strap, before she'd chickened out and put a stop to it.
"Marnie," I'd said, smiling fondly at the memory. The smile had slid off my face really fucking fast as I'd realized that it wouldn't be too many more years before my princess would be in a classroom with a bunch of twelve-year-old budding horndogs.
"Oh, fuck that shit!" I'd exclaimed, sitting straight up and almost knocking my beer over. "Gracie is going to have to go to an all-girls school...she looks just like her mother. Those boys will be all over her!"
Josh and Tony had just laughed at me, but Matt understood what I was saying.
"My point exactly, shithead," he'd muttered, grabbing a couple more beers for both of us.
Now, he and Becca had been blessed with three adorable little girls, all of whom were just as pretty as my sister was. I was glad I only had the one daughter to worry about.
My sweet wife drew my attention from our guests as she gasped at something James was showing her on his phone. My heart skipped a beat, as it always did, at the sight of the beautiful smile that had prompted me to start calling her 'Sunshine' all those years ago.
"Oh my God, I'm so happy for you guys!" I realized that James and Tony were both sporting shit-eating grins, as James turned his phone my way. I glanced at the screen, recognizing the image on the screen as an ultrasound. I had seen enough of them to recognize it on sight, what with Storm Front 2.0, which is what Min had coined the baby boom we'd had going on in the band for the last five years.
"Hell, yeah!" I shouted, before jumping up to grab Tony in a big bear hug. James was next, and I actually lifted him off his feet a little before Tony glared at me and told me to put his husband down.
I spotted Matt and Josh heading our way, and everyone else looking over to see what all the commotion was about.
James held up his phone so they could all see the screen, as Tony yelled, "We're knocked up!"
They had been trying to have a baby for almost a year. James's cousin had offered her eggs, Tony provided the sperm, and a surrogate was found to carry the baby. Two previous tries had been unsuccessful, but the third time was the charm. I was fucking stoked for them.
Allie was crying now, as was every other woman here. Lana, our publicist who was normally very hard-assed and business-like, was even wiping a tear or two from her eyes as her long-time boyfriend Darren patted her hand.
Jayne hugged James as Michael reached for Tony, clapping him on the shoulder as he suggested that maybe our next album should be kids' songs and lullabies. I snorted and Michael eyed me closely. "Never mind, you guys cuss too much for that."
"Let me see my newest great-grandbaby!" I heard Nonna yell as she elbowed Josh out of the way. She reached for the phone, which James handed over immediately because he was not a stupid man. She looked at it for a moment, then smiled and handed it back. She reached up to cup her hand around James's face, then Tony's, before patting their cheeks gently and saying, "You boys have done good. I'm so happy for ya. Don't forget, I get first dibs on babysitting!"
"I claim seconds on the babysitting," Abigail, our part-time housekeeper/nanny added with a smile.
