Page 168 of Everything After

Everyone laughed.

Jack cleared his throat. “I’m moving in this time. No way are you having another baby and I’m being cut out of the loop,”

“Fuck off, Jack,” Alfie replied playfully.

“You never told me you were trying,” Elle remarked when she caught up with me. “We weren’t… not really. I think it happened when I was weaning Charlie off breastfeeding and starting my pills.”

“Jesus Christ, I can’t keep up with all these new editions,” Mya mumbled, rubbing her own belly.

“Not you as well,” I muttered.

“Shh, I think so… but don’t tell Jack, I haven’t done a test yet.”

Right then, a group text alert chimed on all our cell phones. We each pulled out our devices.

“It’s Rick,” Jack said.

Rick: Baby Finn Manny Lennon Fars, safely delivered at 15:01, weighing in at a bouncing 7lb 11oz and he has all the handsome hallmarks of me.

“Really? That was quick. That’s not fair, my first was sixteen hours,” Elle grumbled.

“FML Fars?” Alfie muttered, chuckling. “I wonder if that’s what the kid will be saying once he gets to know his dad. So, are we drawing straws to see who’s going to point out the little slip with the kid’s initials?” Everyone laughed, then fell silent. “Oh, well, it appears that none of you are brave enough to take Rick on? Then, I guess that pleasure is mine.”

Alfie gave a sinister laugh after he said this, and everyone let out a collective breath and cracked up laughing.

Rick’s text was quickly followed with the first picture of Finn.

“Must be Lennie’s baby. The kid doesn’t have a drink in his hand,” Jack offered.

I laughed as I took in the sight of the new life to our circle and remembered the overwhelming love that hit me when Charlie was minutes old. My chest felt tight when I glanced over at him in the nanny’s arms as I fought back the wave of emotion that had threatened me with tears.

“Their boy looks more like Lennie than Rick,” Jack mused, tilting his screen to see the baby from different angles. “But as Lennie, Rick and Coral have agreed not to know who Finn’s dad is, I won’t burst Rick’s bubble and keep that little observation to myself,” Jack added, having shared his thoughts aloud.

“It doesn’t matter to them. What’s important is that he’s the start of a new life, not just for Rick, Coral and Lennie, but for all of us in more ways than one.”

Over time, music had no longer become our sole passion. Nor the only source of our joy. There was no doubt that we’d all continue to make music, but it wasn’t our primary focus anymore.

During the years we’d changed from young, fame-hungry rockers, into the much wiser public figures and everything else that being famous brought. To us, forming bonds was what mattered. Bonds that were sometimes tested, but never completely broken.

Now as we all faced the future, as a close circle of trusted friends, we had two different kinds of music to make. The one where we’d all excelled, and the beats kept us creative and carefree, with lyrics and melodies that came from the soul and had shaped our destiny.

Then there’s the other kind of music, where the score would be filled with trust, loyalty, laughter and sage advice. All of it shared within a community of like-minded, extraordinary people who had been thrown together by life. I believed that in time, each one of us would bring our own rich blend of chaos but also harmony that would shape the creativity and unique personalities of those most precious in the world to us—our next generation of rock stars.