Page 181 of Beautiful Storm

“Not at all. It’s a good thing. Sort of. As long as they get it back up as soon as possible.”

“I’m nervous.” She buries her face into Juliet’s hair as I type in the new link, and I don’t need her to tell me what she’s nervous about for me to know. She’s not talking about the site crashing; she’s worried about her work. I wasn’t joking when I said Poetic Nightmares was the biggest band in the country, and with that comes a lot of responsibility and pressure for Amelia—self-imposed pressure, because Grayson and his band are the most laid-back guys I’ve ever met.

No matter how much we tell her it’s going to be amazing, she won’t believe us until it actually happens.

After Amelia took a year off with Juliet, we hired a nanny for a few days a week so she could start working again. She didn’t want to go back to full-time work, but wanted to flex her creativemuscles, and when Preston’s song “Wicked Style” became huge, just like he said it would, he approached her to direct his next music video. Usingheridea. Full pay this time. Including a writing credit.

And it took off. From there she was approached by bands all around the world, but the biggest win was when she connected with Grayson. After that, her career grew in line with my retirement and I’m now a stay-at-home dad, which I love. I still support the team, and with Thomas coaching, I try to get to all their home games, but my life is shifting. Football will always be in my blood, but it doesn’t hold as much value as it once did. My heart belongs here.

“You have nothing to be nervous about,” I say and I mean it. “I may have snuck in my own viewing of the final cut on the plane.” I wince as Amelia’s eyes widen until she shakes her head with a laugh. She expects most of my antics these days. “It’s phenomenal, Ace. I’m so proud of you. So much so that I had to stop myself from shouting about it to my fellow passengers. I’ve got to say, it’s much better than that quasi docudrama you did about some football team,” I joke.

That quasi docudrama that went on to make millions of dollars for our ex-owner and even won a reality TV award. That should have propelled Amelia to stardom, but she distanced herself from the project after reporting Jake to the police. While he no longer worked for Brighton Productions, they were still all questioned and it dragged their name through the mud, creating a bit of bad blood between her and the producers.

“Wasn’t that you, Daddy?” Juliet crawls on top of me before bopping me on the nose, just like she saw me do to Amelia.

“Yeah, Angel. That was me. Before you were born. Are you ready to watch?”

I’ve just hit play when Shadow jumps up and runs to our back door, making us all turn to find Lainey stepping out. Juliet’s thenext to run but when Amelia moves to stand, I pull her back down.

“Nope. You didn’t jump up for me.”

“I see you plenty. Are you jealous of your sister?”

“Never,” I lie as I watch Juliet and Shadow smother her with love.

“Thomas said you caught an earlier flight,” Lainey calls out. “I came to take Juliet and Shadow to the park.”

It wasn’t enough for Lainey to steal my dog on the regular, she now steals my daughter too. But in this instance, I’m not going to argue.

“Can I go, Dad? Can I go?” Juliet runs back over and clasps her hands together like she’s begging us. Amelia did that as a joke once and now Juliet uses it for everything. As if it wasn’t already hard enough to say no to her.

“Yeah, you can go. But it’s daddy-daughter day tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy.”

Amelia heads inside to help Lainey with Juliet’s bag and I lie back on the lounge, my heavy eyes drifting closed. Random images play through my mind, but before I have a chance to sleep, Amelia’s back. She clears her throat as she stands over me, staring down at me with her perfect little pout, her hands on her hips as though she’s about to scold me.

“Was I not supposed to say yes?”

“No, that’s fine. But you weren’t supposed to watch the music video without me.”

“I know.” I cringe. “But I couldn’t stop myself.” I sit up and wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her on top of me, chuckling when she squeals. “Do you want to watch it together now?”

Amelia bites her lip and her eyes twinkle with mischief. “Actually.” She pauses, trying to hide her smile. “Since I’vealready seen it a million times, I’d rather just wait to see how it goes.”

I burst out laughing and shake my head. “So you just wanted to make me feel bad?”

“Yep.” She winks before moving to get off me, not that I let her get far before pulling her back down.

“How does it feel to be the famous one in our marriage?” I ask, bouncing my eyebrows.

“Stop.” She shoves me away and rolls onto the lounge next to mine. “That’s never going to happen.”

“It better. I’m not making any more money, so one of us has to.” That’s not entirely true—I have a few endorsements in place—but they’ll eventually run out.

“Again. Stop.” Amelia laughs. “We have plenty of money. And if one day we don't, we could sell this oversized house that we don’t need.”

“Yet.”

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