Chapter 44 Epilogue

Five years later

Nico

I opened one eye as the faint sound of my childrens' laughter brought me out of a deep sleep. I tightened my arm around Allie's waist and scooted closer against her, so that her sweet ass was nestled against my rapidly hardening cock. My growing hard-on was partly the result of morning wood, but mostly the result of being near my sexy-as-fuck wife.

I drowsily splayed my hand over her lower belly, cupping the soft little pooch that Allie still despaired over, but that I absolutely fucking loved. She'd earned that little pooch, and I loved it as much as I loved the kids that had caused it. I ground against her a little harder, slipping my fingers down to tease along the front of her panties. She moaned softly in her sleep and shifted slightly, spreading her thighs just enough to give me a little more access to her sweet pussy. I laid there contemplating how much time I had before my sweet little cockblockers decided to make their way out of their room and to our bedroom door.

I heard a soft knocking, followed by Gracie's voice."Mom, Daddy, are you awake yet?

Well, shit , I guess that answers my question , I thought. Sometime in the past few months, Gracie had shortened 'Mommy' to 'Mom'. It had been a bittersweet moment for Allie the first time it had happened, but after her initial surprise and disappointment, she had embraced the sign that our little girl was growing up.

I was still "Daddy" though, and I dreaded the day that changed. I would never admit this to my princess, but I hated the thought of her growing up, because it meant that someday I wouldn't be the only man she loved. I was a greedy bastard that way.

I had told Allie though, and she had hugged me as she'd cried and told me that she was so happy that I was there to set an example of the kind of man worthy of Gracie's love.

My sweet wife groaned at the sound of our daughter's voice, burying her face a little deeper in her pillow.I chuckled - Allie was still not a morning person - and called out to let Gracie know that we would be downstairs in a few minutes.

I patted Allie's ass, taking a second to squeeze it a little before sliding out of bed.

"Good morning, Sunshine," I told her as she rolled over and opened one eye to glare at me.

"Pffft," was her eloquent response as she flung her arm over her eyes. "Why are they awake so early?" she whined. "I was still sleeping."

"You ask me that every time, love. My answer is still the same. They wake us early for the same reason they interrupt every time I'm trying to fuck you. It's their job to disturb us."

I laughed as she groaned and pulled the covers up over her head. I pulled them back down as I leaned over and kissed her forehead.

"Come on, sleepyhead. The birthday girl is waiting."

At my reminder, Allie sat up and pushed back the covers, sliding her legs over the side of the bed. I reached out my hands for hers and pulled her up to a standing position beside the bed.

"You think you can manage from here?" I teased her, knowing full well that she wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed.

She snorted. "Yeah, I think I've got it." She swatted my ass as I turned and walked to the closet to grab a pair of sweatpants, slipping them on along with a T-shirt.

"I'll go get breakfast started. Meet you downstairs," I called over my shoulder as I opened our bedroom door.Allie's response was muffled as she closed the bathroom door behind her. It was probably just as well, as it most likely was less than complimentary. I turned toward the stairs, almost tripping over Bowie, our Yellow Lab as he bounded up the stairs to greet me.I ruffled the scruff of fur behind his ears as he nudged at my legs and wagged his tail furiously.

"Are you hungry, Bo?" I asked, using the high-pitched doggie voice that everyone used when interacting with furry friends. He just wagged his tail even faster in response.

I heard the muffled giggles as Bowie followed me downstairs to the kitchen, and I hoped that the kids weren't getting into something they weren't supposed to.

I smiled as I heard Gracie say, "No, we have to wait on Mom. Close the refrigerator and sit down at the table." She excelled at being a bossy big sister.

I rounded the corner into the kitchen and swooped Gracie up in my arms. She squealed and grabbed hold of my shoulders to steady herself. I didn't get to do this very often, as she had decided some time ago that she wasn't a little girl anymore, although I'd quickly informed her that she'd still be my little girl even when she was fifty.

"Happy birthday, princess. How does it feel to be nine years old?" I asked as I kissed her on the cheek and set her back down on her feet.

She shrugged and grinned, trying to play at cool but I knew how excited she was for her birthday today.

"Pick me up, Daddy!" I turned to find our almost five-year-old son Dominic Giovanni Peretti, IV - known as Dom just as my Nonno had been - grinning up at me.

I swung him up in my arms, hugging and kissing him as I'd done to Gracie, looking down as I felt a tug on my pant leg.

"Me, me, me!" I grinned down at our three-year-old son, who was hopping up and down in his excitement. I put Dom back on his feet, and scooped up Donovan Anthony, known as Van, because Allie refused to allow it to be shortened to Don or Donny.

Yes, our youngest child was named after Alex Donovan, Allie's late husband. It had actually been my idea, although I'd been a little hesitant to suggest it when Allie and I were struggling to find a name during the last months of her pregnancy. I hadn't wanted to upset her, which happened frequently with the hormonal changes her body had been going through. Pregnancy hormones were no fucking joke, as I'd learned the hard way during her pregnancy with Dom.

"OK, hear me out on this before you say anything. What would you think about naming him Donovan?" I'd said late one night as we'd been snuggled on the sofa in the media room after putting Gracie and Dom to bed.

Allie had lifted her head from my shoulder and looked at me. "Donovan?" she'd asked, clearly shocked by my suggestion.

I'd cupped my hand around her cheek and kissed the tip of her nose.

"Yeah. Look, I know it may seem strange, but Alex gave me my daughter, so I figure it's only right to share my son with him in some way.I want to honor him, and I want Gracie to know that even though I'm very much her Daddy, that we haven't forgotten her Daddy Alex either.

Allie had cried, sobbed actually, which had freaked me the fuck out. I'd held her tight, telling her we could choose a different name if she wanted to. She had eventually calmed down enough to speak, and had told me that it was a wonderful idea, and that I was a wonderful man for thinking of it. Later that night, she'd thanked me for my thoughtfulness by giving me a blowjob that still made me hard just remembering it.

Van's middle name, Anthony, was in honor of Tony.He and Allie had grown exceptionally close in the last five years, even more so as he and James had navigated the ups and downs of their early relationship. Allie had been his rock when he doubted his decision to come out publicly. When online trolls spewed their homophobic shit into the universe, she was his staunchest supporter. She was fierce in her defense of him, and he adored her for it.

When James had almost decided he couldn't handle life in the public eye, Allie talked him through it, sharing some of her experiences and coaching him on how to handle it. Tony had declared himself forever in her debt for helping him save his relationship with the man he had fallen in love with.

After blowing raspberries on Van's neck - he loved that, for some reason - I put him in his booster seat at the kitchen table, and turned to the food bowls in the corner of the kitchen. I made quick work of filling Bowie's food bowl, with him practically knocking me over to get to it when I finished. The crazy dog did that every time, acting as if he hadn't eaten in a week. I filled the bowls for the two cats next, knowing that Jagger and Lennon would wander in to eat whenever they damned well wanted to. I smiled and thanked Gracie as she filled their water bowls without being asked.

Allie shuffled into the kitchen ten minutes later dressed in one of my Storm Front T-shirts and her yoga pants. I loved her wearing those things. Whoever created them was a fucking genius as far as I was concerned.

"Gracie-girl, what kind of pancakes do you want this morning? Blueberry, banana, or chocolate chip?" she asked as she headed toward the pantry to get the dry ingredients needed for her pancake recipe.

Gracie and I both turned to Allie and said "chocolate chip" in unison. Was there really any need to ask? If chocolate chips were an option, the answer was always chocolate chips, whether we're talking about pancakes or cookies.

Allie just laughed and shook her head before getting the bag of chocolate chips from the pantry and adding it to the flour and other items she'd placed on the countertop.

While Allie made the pancakes and bacon, I washed and sliced some fruit to go with breakfast and got drinks for everyone. Chocolate milk for the kids, coffee for me, and hot tea for my Sunshine. She smiled gratefully as I handed it to her, in a mug that said, "OMG! I slept with a rockstar last night!"

We sang a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday to You", the first of several that would be sung that day, per tradition. Van sang it as happy birfday , which was cute as hell.

As soon as breakfast was over, I reminded the kids to carry their dishes over to the sink and Allie and I cleaned up the kitchen. Once Van had come along, I had insistedthat Allie relent and hire a full-time housekeeper and a nanny. The battle raged for weeks before we finally compromised, and now Abigail Flynn, a fifty-ish woman who suddenly found herself single after being a stay-at-home mom for years, came once a week for heavy cleaning - mopping floors, scrubbing bathrooms and washing windows - and helped out with the kids on occasion. Abigail was Jayne Drummond's cousin, and we knew we could trust her. She couldn't care less about fame or celebrity, and she adored our kids. They loved their "Aunt Abigail", so it worked out well.

A few months after she started working for us, Matt and Becca, and Josh and Min had also hired her in a similar fashion, so Abigail was able to drop her other clients and become the band's "official" housekeeper/nanny.She had even come on tour with us for a couple of weeks last summer, when our families had been able to join the guys and me in the middle of our US tour.

As we'd all developed our personal lives outside of the band five years ago, we'd made some hard decisions about the future of Storm Front. The four of us were in agreement that we wanted to continue making music together - that was never going to fucking change - but we wanted to slow down on the touring.

Of course, tours are a major money-maker, for us and for the record label. The four of us were OK with taking a financial hit. We could more than afford it, and it was important for all of us to be home more often. The record label was not happy though, and when our contract expired several months after Dom's birth, the negotiations for a new contract quickly stalled. They insisted on more than we wanted to give. So, we walked.

With Michael's help, we established our own smaller label, attracted bands and musicians who were like-minded, and four years later, we are a lot fucking happier for it. We have good people in place running the day-to-day stuff for the record label, with Michael's wife Jayne overseeing all of it for us, but the four of us retained creative control and were the ultimate decision-makers.

"OK, guys, let's get ready. We're leaving in an hour, so wash the syrup off your face and hands, then head upstairs to your rooms. Dom and Van, you're with me. I'll get you two ready while Mommy gets her shower. Princess, don't forget to put on your sunscreen before you get dressed," I instructed, smiling as the kids actually listened for once without anyone pouting, grumbling or whining. They all loved going to the Santa Monica Pier, which is what Gracie had picked for her birthday outing this morning. The Ferris wheel was her favorite, although she still insisted that "fairy wheel" was a better name for it.

Later this afternoon, we were having a pool party to celebrate with family, so it was going to be a long day. Gracie would celebrate again tomorrow with a pizza party for several of her friends. That would be a shit-ton of fun, not! Half a dozen giggling, screaming little girls hopped up on pizza, sodas and cupcakes running around. I'd still take that over another trip to that fucking Build-A-Bear place though. Luckily, she'd outgrown that a year or two ago. Every damned time I had taken her there, the photos hit the tabloid sites within hours, usually with me wearing a tiara or a feather boa or some such shit, just because my princess asked me to.

By the time we made it home a few hours later, the boys were in desperate need of a nap. I wouldn't have minded taking one myself, but there was a party to get ready for.

Allie had prepared most of the food last night, with the help of my excellent chopping and clean-up skills, and Aunt Ellen was bringing the birthday cake, as always. That just left the decorating and table set-up for Allie and me today, while Gracie went to her room to talk to her friends. Spending hours on the phone giggling with her friends was a relatively new development, but it was a rite of passage, according to Allie. Having never been a nine-year-old girl myself, I just took her word for it.

A little before 4:00 pm, the first guests arrived. "Nana, Papa!" Gracie squealed, running to greet my parents as if she hadn't seen them in years, when she actually just saw them two days ago.

"Nonna" was the next squealed greeting, even though she and Allie had taken my grandmother to lunch yesterday.

Soon, Steve and Colleen arrived, earning yet another squeal, despite the fact that they had stopped by for a few minutes last night on their way to dinner.

Squealing was obviously going to feature heavily in today's activities, as it continued as each guest arrived.

Two hours later, the kids and most of the adults got out of the pool and dried off as Steve and my dad announced that the meat was almost ready. They were still "The Grill Masters" at every cookout, no matter whose house it was.

As I watched my sexy-ass wife flit around, making sure everyone had enough to eat and drink, I knew I was the luckiest motherfucker on the planet. I fixed her a plate, since she hadn't taken time to get her own food yet. I grabbed a glass of iced tea to go with it, and headed toward her.

"Sunshine, you need to eat. They all know where everything's at. If they need something, they can get it themselves," I said softly as I leaned in and dropped a kiss on her temple. "Sit down here with James and Tony, and I'll grab my food and be right back."

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 fact that 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 Steve liked 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.

After the excitement settled down, Lana sat down to talk to Allie about PR for the charity we had established after Dom was born.

The Alex Donovan Foundation for Families was dedicated specifically to helping families with children pay medical bills after the death of a parent. In the three years since it was founded, we had helped hundreds of families escape financial hardship during times of unimaginable grief. It still pissed me off how damned greedy the insurance and pharmaceutical companies could be, especially when it came to caring for the terminally ill. I didn't know how any of those bastards could sleep at night.

The Foundation was initially funded by 100% of the proceeds from our release of "Daddy's Girl." Since then, we'd had several successful fundraisers, as well as donations from a number of high-profile celebrities. There was actually a downloadable album in the works, with original music written and performed by a variety of musicians who were donating their time and talent to the cause. The songs were all being recorded at the sound studio here at the house, and the producers and sound engineers had all donated their time to the project as well. I was proud as hell of all that Allie had achieved.

Allie ran the foundation as a volunteer, taking no salary for herself. She had an assistant and a secretary, both paid positions, but Allie was the driving force behind it all.

At my urging, she had quit her job as Michael's assistant midway through her pregnancy with Dom, a fact I was grateful as hell for. Even though I was very happily - and very publicly - married, the number of women who had tried to reach me through Michael's office had seemed to increase.

We'd had one too many evenings when an overly-hormonal Allie had cried in my arms, because of pictures of scantily-clad or naked women had been sent to me, many with vulgar propositions included. The worst, to my eternal shame and regret, was a picture taken in secret by an apparent hook-up from years ago that I didn't even remember, even after seeing photographic evidence in the form of us lying naked together in bed. In the photo, I was sound asleep, or more likely, passed out drunk judging by the half-empty whiskey bottle on the hotel nightstand. Ithad broken my heart to listen to Allie sobbing that night, feeling the hot sting of her tears on my shoulder at the same time as I felt our baby kicking her belly as she lay against me.

The photo had been taken years before, before Allie and I had even met, most likely, based on the lack of my tattoo in the picture. The four of us had gotten our band's logo tattooed on our chests just a few months after Allie had come to work for Michael. We had decided to celebrate the new contract we had just signed with our original label, for almost twice what the first contract had been. The matching tattoos, the size of a baseball, had been the result.

But even though this hook-up had happened before we met, the sight of me naked and in bed with another woman was still hard for her to see. The explicit message and telephone number the bitch had sent with the photo hadn't helped either.

I didn't blame Allie for being upset. After all, it had been over five years, and I still didn't like to see Liam at Gracie's school functions. The man was nice, had remarried, and was clearly as in love with his new wife as I was with Allie, but that didn't matter. He had still kissed and touched my girl, even though she hadn't been my girl at the time. If I'd had to actually see photographic evidence of their make-out session, I'd probably have beaten his ass, even all these years later.

As I listened to Allie and Lana discussing some upcoming community outreach they were planning, I let my gaze rest on my wife, as it often did. I wasn't sure how she did it, but I fucking swore that Allie grew more beautiful every single day.

Her curves were even more lush than before, and her 'baby pooch' as she called it, was a little more rounded. The jiggle of her tits, or the sway of her hips and ass as she walked across a room still caused my dick to harden every fucking time. But despite all of those obviously sexy-as-hell attributes, her smile is what still got to me the most. That smile was pure Sunshine, and she had used it to light up every possible corner of my world.

I heard her excuse herself, telling Lana that she was going to run inside for just a moment. She briefly made eye contact with me as she got up from the table, giving me a barely perceptible wink as she walked toward the house.

"I'm going to go see if my wife needs any help. Be right back." Lana gave me a knowing smile and just shook her head as I rose from my seat, my gaze fixed firmly on my wife's amazing ass.

I slipped in through the French doors to the kitchen, spying Allie bent over looking for something in the refrigerator. I walked up behind her, grasping the rounded hips in front of me and pulling her back to nestle her sweet ass against my cock.

Allie glanced over her shoulder and smiled at me as she straightened and pushed her ass against me ever so slightly.

"What took you so long, honey?" she asked, as she turned in my arms to loop her arms around my neck. She softly kissed my neck and gently nibbled her way up to my jaw before kissing that spot just behind my ear that always made me shiver.

I flashed her my best attempt at a shocked expression. "Why, Mrs. Peretti, were you trying to lure me in here to have your wicked way with me?"

She arched a brow at me, in that way that she knew drove me crazy. "And if I was?"

I smiled at her and slowly brought my hand up to circle the base of her throat."Oh, Sunshine, you haven't seen wicked yet. Just wait until I get you in our bed tonight. I hope you don't expect to get much sleep."

As she pulled me down for a kiss, I thought - for probably the millionth time in the last five years - that I was the luckiest fucker on the planet.

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