Chapter 34 The Song

Nico

After we ate dinner and helped Steve and Colleen clean up, we took Gracie home, only to find a dozen or more paparazzi outside the gate. I'd called to get a heads-up from the security team, so I'd been expecting them at least. The guards did a good job keeping the cameramen away from the car, but I regretted my decision to drive us myself instead of calling the service for a car and driver.

Once we got inside, we decided to watch a movie for a while, then have a light dinner later since we'd had such a big midday meal with Allie's folks. While Gracie was engrossed in The Little Mermaid, Allie and I snuggled at the other end of the sofa and talked quietly.

"How soon can we get married, Sunshine?" I asked, enjoying the feel of her in my arms.

She tipped her head back to look up at me from where she was resting her head on my chest. "Well, that depends on how big of a wedding you want. I mean, you know a lot of people, so if we're having a big wedding, it will take at least a year to plan and secure a venue."

My eyes bugged out. "Oh, hell no, I'm not waiting a year. If you want a big wedding, that's fine, but we will need to make it happen a lot sooner than that."

"I don't particularly want a big wedding, unless you do?" she said hesitantly.

"Sunshine, I'd be happy if it was just you, me, Gracie and the minister, as long as I get to call you my wife when we're done," I said with a smile.

She rolled her eyes and huffed. "I'm serious, Nico. What kind of wedding do you want?"

I'd seen the pictures of Allie's wedding to Alex. It had been a big affair at the church her parents attended. "Do you want to get married at the church again?" I asked.

She grimaced slightly, then shook her head. "Not really. I mean, Alex and I did that mainly because it was expected of us. But I'm not a regular church-goer anymore, and I know you aren't, so that doesn't feel right."

"OK, so what about a destination wedding?The Caribbean?Europe?We could fly everyone to wherever, and just have our families and close friends. By the time we factor in aunts, uncles, and cousins, maybe 30-35 people?"

She nodded, then shrugged. "I like the idea of a smaller wedding, but it seems like a lot to ask people to take the time to travel that far. Let me do some research and see what I can come up with a little closer to home?"

I smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. "Fine with me, Sunshine. But make it sooner, rather than later, OK?"

By the time the movie ended, and we ate, Allie hustled Gracie upstairs for her bath. Once they had finished, Gracie wanted me to do her bedtime routine. Allie left us alone after kissing her goodnight, and Gracie picked the stories she wanted me to read to her.

I got her to lie down and cover up, then I sat next to her and leaned back against the headboard to dive into the adventures of the princess fairy tales she'd picked tonight. After the second story, her eyes were getting heavy, so I kissed her cheek and started to get up.

"Sing me the song, Uncle Nico," she mumbled sleepily.

"Which song, princess?"

"The one about Daddy's girl," she said, and I smiled. I'd sung the song I'd written after Alex's funeral to her a few times over the years as I'd put her to bed, but I'd thought she had been too tired to really remember it.

I sat back down and ran my hand over her hair. "OK, but you need to close your eyes and try to go to sleep when I'm done." She closed her eyes and nodded, and I began to sing softly to her.

The first time that I saw you,

I felt my heart skip a beat

I looked into your blue eyes,

never seen anything so sweet

I knew my life had changed,

as I held you in my arms

I knew that I would love you,

and keep you safe from harm

Oh, you changed me.

You reached down in my soul

and rearranged me.

From your first breath, until my last

So many regrets, a life gone too fast

You're the center of my world

Daddy loves you, baby girl

The first time that I saw you,

I stared down at your sweet face

Wrapped your little hand in mind,

my world shifted into place

If I was granted just one wish, I swear

I'll watch over you,

I'll always be there.

Oh, you changed me.

You reached down in my soul

and rearranged me.

From your first breath,

until my last

So many regrets,

a life gone too fast

You're the center of my world

Daddy loves you, baby girl

Gracie's eyes were closed by the time I finished, and I carefully slipped off the bed and turned off the light, after making sure the nightlight was on. I shut the door quietly behind me, and turned to go down the stairs, only to find Allie standing outside the bedroom door with tears streaming down her face.

"Allie, what's wrong?" I asked, pulling her into my arms and moving down the hall towards our bedroom. I was panicked at the thought that she'd seen something else online that had upset her.

"That song..." she said, sobbing against my chest. I sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling her down into my lap, rubbing my hands up and down her back. I sighed heavily, knowing this conversation was going to be rough.

"I wrote that song the night of Alex's funeral," I confessed quietly. "The video he made for you two was so incredible, and the part about loving Gracie from her first breath until his last stuck with me. I went home that night and wrote most of it, combining his words with my feelings the night she was born. The guys helped me polish out the rough spots a few days later. I sing it to her sometimes when I'm putting her to sleep."

She sobbed harder against me, and I felt like shit for upsetting her so much. "I'm so sorry, Allie. I didn't mean to upset you. I'll stop singing it if you want."

She clung to me even tighter. "No, it's beautiful. Please don't stop singing it." Her words were muffled against my shoulder, her voice shaking with the emotions running through her. After a few minutes, she pulled away and grabbed the box of tissues from beside the bed.

"Are you sure you're OK with that, Sunshine?" I asked, stripping off my tear-soaked T-shirt and tossing it into the hamper in the closet. I pulled another one off the hanger and slipped it on, as Allie walked into the bathroom. I walked over and leaned against the open doorway, watching as she splashed water on her face and patted it dry. She looked at herself in the mirror, grimacing at her swollen eyes and blotchy skin. Glancing over at me, she gave me a soft smile and nodded.

"Yes, it's beautiful, and I love that you gave her a little reminder of Alex's love to soothe her to sleep, even if she's too young to know it." She walked over and wrapped her arms around my waist as I pulled her in close for a hug. I dropped a kiss on the top of her head, and we stood there for several long moments before she stepped back with a smile.

We headed back downstairs and grabbed a couple of glasses of iced tea, then took them out to the pool deck to enjoy the night air. We curled up on the double lounger that had quickly become our favorite place out here, and Allie laid her head on my shoulder.

"Have you ever thought of recording that song?" she asked softly. "I know it's obviously not Storm Front's typical music, but I think people would love it."

"I thought about it briefly at the time, but it was too soon. I don't want to release it for profit, but if you're OK with it, maybe we could release it and donate the proceeds to a worthy cause."

She raised up on one elbow to look at me. "I think that would be perfect, honey."She leaned over and gave me a sweet kiss, then laid back down on my shoulder. "Do you have a charity in mind?"

I hesitated, not wanting to upset her again. "I would like to donate to a fund that helps families with children who are struggling with medical bills during or after the death of a parent."

She sighed, "I think that would be perfect. You know, I was so worried that I would have to use all of the life insurance or sell the house when Alex died. His insurance was good, but it didn't come close to paying everything. I kept waiting for a huge hospital bill, but they apparently wrote off what insurance didn't pay after he died. I called about two months later, when I hadn't received anything, and they said the account had a zero balance. I didn't believe them - I was sure they'd made a mistake - but they sent me a statement showing zero balance due."

My body had tensed as she talked. Oh shit, I was so fucked. She was gonna be pissed when she found out, but I knew it would be even worse if I didn't say anything and she found out later.

"Um, OK, please don't get mad, but the hospital didn't write it off," I began, and she jerked back to look at me. "I, uh, overheard you arguing on the phone with the insurance company a couple of months before he died, and I knew those greedy bastards weren't paying nearly enough. So, I made arrangements to pay the balance, so you didn't have to worry about it." I winced at the look on her face as I finished my confession.

"You what???" she demanded, her eyes narrowed, and mouth pinched into a tight line.

"Look, there was no fucking way I was going to let you lose everything just because those greedy motherfuckers didn't pay as much as they should have. You had enough to worry about with raising Gracie, I didn't want you to have to worry about money too."

"But, Nico, I can't even imagine how much that was. You shouldn't have - "

I interrupted her, determined to shut this budding argument down. "Allie, the bottom line is that I have more money than I know what to do with, and there was no fucking way I could have let someone I cared about go through even more shit than she already was. I paid it, and I don't miss even a single penny of it. Now, we're not gonna argue about this, Sunshine."

She glared at me for a moment, then her face slowly softened, and she leaned over to kiss my cheek. "You're an incredible human being, Nico Peretti. Thank you."

She laid back down on my shoulder and I wrapped my arm tightly around her. "So, that was a fight, right? Does that mean we get to have make-up sex now?" I asked, only partly joking.

She snorted out a laugh and smacked my chest lightly. "Not on this lounger we aren't. I'm not taking a chance on my naked ass making the cover of the Daily Dish."

"Nope, you're right. Nobody sees this sweet ass but me," I said with a growl, grabbing a handful and squeezing. God, I loved her curves. She giggled and squirmed against me, and I leaned down to nip at her ear. "You'd better stop moving against me like that, sweetheart. You're making me hard." I grabbed her hand and moved it to the bulge in my crotch. She gently rubbed my cock through the denim, and I groaned and bucked my hips up. I gave her a swift tap on her ass, making her squeal. "Behave yourself, woman."

She laughed and moved her hand back up to rest on the middle of my chest, and we laid there quietly for a while, enjoying the closeness and the quiet of the night. My phone rang suddenly, startling us both. I rolled over on one hip to fish it out of my back pocket and saw Matt's name on the caller ID.

"Hey man, what's up?"

"Uh, I need to talk to you. I would have preferred doing this face to face like a man, but the fucking paps are forcing my hand here. Are you somewhere private that you can talk?" he asked, sounding serious and maybe a little nervous.

I nudged Allie aside and sat up, shooting her a questioning look. "I'm here at home, sitting with Allie. What the fuck is wrong?"

At my words, Allie's gaze sharpened with worry.

"Nothing is wrong, exactly, but this isn't the way we wanted to tell you. Becca and I have been seeing each other. We were going to tell -"

I froze. "What the fuck did you just say to me? You and Becca??? You've been messing around with my little sister?"

I jumped up off the lounger and started pacing around the pool deck. I was gonna fucking kill him. Matt was a total manwhore, worse than I ever was, and he thought he could fuck around with Becca?

Allie jumped up and grabbed my arm, halting my pacing. She put her palms up in a pleading gesture and whispered, "Just calm down!" It registered in the back of mind that she didn't look terribly surprised.

"Just fucking listen, OK?We aren't just messing around, man. We're together, I mean, we're a serious couple. We were going to tell you as soon as the shitshow about you and Allie calmed down, but some fucker with a cellphone snapped pictures of us on the beach and sold them to TMZ. They realized who Becca was and reached out to me for a comment before they run the photos tonight."

I inhaled deeply through my nose and exhaled through my mouth, trying to calm myself down before I reached through the phone and castrated my possibly former best friend.

"Allie is here with me. I'm gonna put you on speaker, hang on," I pulled the phone from my ear and tapped the screen, and grabbed Allie's hand to walk back inside.

"How serious are you, Matt, because if you're just using her as one of your fucktoys, I swear - "

"Don't you fucking dare talk about your sister like that, man!" he roared through the phone, and I stopped walking, looking down at Allie with a resigned shake of my head.

"That serious, huh?" I asked, knowing what his protective outburst meant.

"Yeah, that fucking serious. We're making plans for her to move in with me," he said gruffly.

I heaved a big sigh. A part of me hated this, but I knew that deep down, Matt was a good guy. He wouldn't be my best friend otherwise. "Look, Matt, you know how much she went through with Ben cheating on her and being an asshole about canceling the wedding. I just don't want her getting hurt again."

"I love her, man, and I would never do anything to hurt her. She's it for me."

I blinked and looked at Allie, who was smiling widely even though she had a tear in her eye. Well, fuck. "And she loves you?" I asked, needing to be sure.

"I'm not sure why, but yes, she does," he said with a small chuckle.

"OK, so how bad are the pictures?" I asked, cringing at the thought of something explicit.

"Uh, they aren't that bad, it's just obvious that we're a couple," he hedged, clearly uncomfortable.

"How obvious, asshole?" I demanded.

"About as obvious as you and Allie were at the after-party."

I sighed again, and Allie hugged me. "Congratulations, Matt, I'm so happy for you both," she said sweetly. "Congratulations," I added gruffly. "Tell my sister to call me in the morning."

"Thanks man, I will," Matt said, sounding relieved that I wasn't going to rip his balls off - for the moment anyway.

After I hung up the phone, I turned to Allie, remembering her lack of surprise at the beginning of the call. "So, I'm guessing that you knew about them?"

She looked like a deer in the headlights, glancing at me warily and then looking away. She nodded reluctantly. "I found out a little bit of it a few days ago. Matt wanted to tell you himself. I'm sorry."

I smiled ruefully. "It's OK, I get it. I'm not sure I really wanna see those pictures, though."

Allie picked up her phone and pulled up the TMZ site. "I'll look for you, you big chicken." She scrolled through, then paused to read the article, humming a little here and there, then chuckling. "They have a theory now that you gave Matt that black eye after you found out about him and Becca."

"How bad are the pics?" I asked, cringing.

"They're fine. There's one of them holding hands, and one of them kissing, then one of him putting sunscreen on her. Nothing scandalous, I promise." She turned her phone toward me, and I looked at the photos on the screen.

"His hand is on her ass, Allie," I pointed out. She glanced at it and rolled her eyes with a huff.

"Over the top of her bikini, honey. It's OK. He wasn't sexing her up right there on the sand."

"Oh God, I did not need that visual, thanks," I whined.

"Come on, you big baby. Let's go upstairs, and I'll sex you up. Will that make you feel better?" she asked with a smirk.

I grabbed her hand and raced toward the stairs. "As a matter of damned fact, that will make me feel much better. Great idea, Sunshine."