Fletcher
The family that burps together, stays together.
’s heart hadn’t stopped its little happy dance since the day Micah said ‘I love you’. But it was doing twirls and jumps now that he had both the George women in his life. Forever, if Emery has anything to say about it . He couldn’t believe that this was his life. A woman who was way out of his league, but everything he ever wanted. And a teenager that was funny and charming and beautiful and sassy, and certainly kept him on his toes. The past week had been a test of his emotional capabilities and he was happy to say that he’d survived.
Growing up, he was told that ‘men don’t cry’. Men were supposed to be strong and silent, stoic in the face of sadness. But that was a whole lot of bullshit. When he met Jack, Soren and Brandy, and they started The Rescuers, there were a lot of tears. And nobody joked about them being ‘manly tears’, they just cried. Happy tears over a successfully recorded album. Sad tears over the loss of a family member. Ecstatic tears when their tour was sold out. And so much more. Crying was therapeutic, or at least Hank said so.
So when Emery opened herself up and told him she wanted him to stay, when she said she was grateful for him, he let himself cry. Because if there were two people who would appreciate his tears in this world, it was Micah and Emery.
But that also brought to mind the fact that he hadn’t had such an incredible Christmas in a long time. His last memory of a big and fun Christmas was with the band before they took their sabbatical—if you could still call it that. It was before any of them got married, so the four band members, their entire crew and every single person who helped them on that last tour got together and had a wild time. Booze was flowing, celebrations were loud and chaotic. Everyone was happy. The Rescuers had made more than enough albums to keep their bank accounts full, they had gone on tour for years at a stretch and it was finally time to hang up their instruments. That Christmas played on loop in his mind regularly, because it was the last time he’d smiled so much while sitting around a table surrounded by his favorite people.
What did it say that the Christmases when he was married to Alice were boring in comparison to that or to what he was experiencing now? Since his relationship with his family was non-existent, would go with Alice to see her folks and dinner would be a quiet affair. Everyone would do their own thing around the Christmas tree. Gifts would be exchanged quietly. It was dull. He liked Alice’s family fine, but they didn’t enjoy the little things. Back then, he didn’t know what he was missing.
Until now.
Micah’s house was dressed up far more than he thought possible for someone who had zero interest in the holidays. But it was clear that she’d done everything for Emery. From the beautifully decorated tree—seriously it was almost as good as what he’d seen at Rockefeller Center in New York—to the lights strung across the windows, even the faux fireplace had something including a stocking with his initial on it. This was the kind of Christmas you saw in movies, but it wasn’t for show. The George women took everything they did seriously and while it might not be Micah’s favorite time of year, she didn’t hold back.
More than all of this, it was the way he felt when he was with them. Welcomed and wanted. Loved . Which wasn’t totally unbelievable, but it had been a while since he’d felt like he belonged. He’d sent pictures to Erin—who had returned to San Diego for her firm’s holiday party—and his best friend had reminded him that he was the luckiest son of a bitch in the world. Which was the absolute truth. He had everything he never thought he’d have—a partner he loved with every fibre of his being and a kid that he would protect and love for the rest of his life.
“Fletch. You okay?” Micah’s voice broke through his thoughts and he turned to find her looking up at him with concern.
“Yeah.” He nodded and leaned into her slightly. “Still thinking about how lucky I am.”
“You looked angry there for a minute.”
He handed Micah a plate so she could slide it into the dishwasher. “I didn’t have holidays like this, you know. Maybe when I was a kid, but Christmas never looked this good.”
She nodded and gave his arm a squeeze. “Well, better get used to it. Because this is what Christmas will be like until Emery gets sick of it.”
“I’m absolutely okay with that,” he told her, pressing a kiss to the side of her head.
And he was. He was excited to see what kind of stuff Emery would conjure up next year, what new hobbies she’d pick up by the time Christmas rolled around again. The fact that he would get to see that for another year—and then some—made his heart do somersaults.
“Are you two done making out?”
“I thought you were grateful for our weird and beautiful relationship?” Micah countered and laughed at Emery’s fake gagging.
“Please don’t…I have regrets.”
“Did you clear the table?” he asked and Emery pouted at him. “Come on, kid. That’s all you’ve gotta do. Bring everything in here and then we’ll stop making out.”
With an epic eye roll and a sigh that could shake even the strongest building, she stomped off to clear the table. Micah shot him a smirk and bumped her hip against his.
“You’ve already got this whole stern dad thing down.”
Dad . The term lodged in his brain and stared as it pulsed slowly. “Is that what I did?”
“And you didn’t even realize it.” Micah laughed and walked away. He shook his head as he tried to process what was going on.
When he first met Emery, was terrified that he’d never know how to talk to teenagers. He was forty-seven and his experience with kids was in the meet and greet line at concerts and when he was Santa for three weeks. Then he met Emery and Nico, and suddenly he needed to know how to talk to younger people. People who had never heard his music or knew who he was. And it was an adjustment. He was lucky that Emery was more of an adult than most people her age, but still.
Dad was never a role he saw for himself. Yet, he liked the way the word fit him.
“Can we please eat dessert now? It’s melting,” Emery whined as she gestured to whatever Micah had made. And to be honest, it was melting.
“Oh fuck, what the hell happened to it?” Micah stared at the dessert, which made Emery giggle. But then instead of losing her mind over it, Micah grabbed spoons and held them out to the two of them. “We’re gonna stand here and eat, dig in.”
He didn’t have to be told twice, leaning over the counter, he scooped up a large piece of the dessert and shoved it into his mouth. He groaned at the melted chocolate and caramel as Emery made a similar sound on the other side of the counter. He ate another piece and another before finally turning to his girlfriend. “What is this deliciousness?”
She beamed, smug and proud of herself. “It’s called a desperation pie, you cobble together ingredients you have and make it work.”
“God, Mom, it’s soooo gooooood !”
“We’ve got cocoa, pecans, walnuts, salted caramel, condensed milk, graham crackers and a regular pie crust,” Micah said as she ate some more of the pie.
The whole thing was seconds away from collapsing onto the counter, so was glad that they’d found a way to keep it standing up right, at least for a little longer. But once they were halfway through the pie—“why did I make such a big one for the three of us?“—everyone dropped their spoons and leaned away.
“Chocolate overload,” Emery groaned and rubbed his stomach as he straightened up.
“But it’s worth the sugar rush that’s going to hit me very soon.” released a burp and smirked when his girls released matching ones of their own.
“The family that burps together, stays together,” Micah added, winking at him.
She had to know what she was doing with all these big words. First, she called him a dad . Now, she was tossing around family like it was totally normal. He agreed with all those words, but he was already so emotionally charged by these two women, those terms were amplifying his feelings. While Micah and Emery put the rest of the dessert away, fixed them tea. He listened as the two of them giggled and talked about messy dessert memories, about how there was one time when Micah made a birthday cake that collapsed as soon as she set it down in front of all the other kids. By the time he’d turned around with cups filled with hot apple cinnamon tea, his girls were lying on the kitchen floor hooting and howling as they laughed.
“Do you need help?” he asked, looking down at the two of them.
Micah nodded as Emery shook her head, both their hands stretched out to him. He set the tray down and held out his hands, smiling as they reached out and he pulled them to their feet. But instead of thanking him and moving away, both of them hugged him, arms tightly wrapped around him. His heart skipped and his breath caught at the feeling. He hugged them back, squeezing them against him, kissed the tops of their heads and then stepped away.
“It’s almost bedtime for this old man, so let’s go unwrap those gifts.” At the mention of gifts, Emery released him and charged for the living room.
“I love you,” Micah said, tilting her head back for a kiss.
He dropped a soft kiss to her lips and smiled. “I love you too.”
Armed with their tea, they sat snuggled together on the couch while Emery went through her stack of gifts. Even though he and Micah had decided not to buy each other any gifts, got Micah something. After all, she said “don’t spend any money on me, okay?”, she didn’t say anything about no actual gifts. However, they did discuss and buy Emery a bunch of gifts that were thoughtful and what she wanted.
He’d wrapped a pair of his old drumsticks for her, not to use, but to hold onto. There were tiny cracks from being used so much and a faint outline of his hands still lingered on the base, but he knew that Emery would appreciate it. Especially when she started crying as she unwrapped it. Even though they’d decided she was done with drums, he still bought her a book that helped her read sheet music. In some part of his mind, believed that Emery could play music. Just not the drums. At Micah’s suggestion, he’d also bought her a pair of star-shaped earrings and a gift voucher to get another piercing in her ears—this was accepted with much squealing and hugging.
Then Emery moved onto Micah’s gifts, which were a lot more in line with what she wanted—a makeup kit, a pack of suspenders with skulls on them, a poster of The Rescuers that had gotten his bandmates to sign and send over. Emery was over the moon about all her gifts and was glad for it. Once she was done, she carried her loot up to her bedroom and closed the door. Leaving him and Micah alone on the couch, with wrapping paper strewn around everywhere.
“I got you something,” she said, sliding out from under his arm to retrieve an envelope from behind the tree. “But this also depends on whether or not you opened your birthday gift.”
“I uh…forgot,” he replied, looking apologetic.
Micah laughed and returned to the couch. “Of course you did.”
He took the large envelope from her, realizing that it was the same size as the one she’d given him for his birthday. Carefully opening it, he tipped it sideways and glanced at her as a bunch of photographs slipped into his hand. He didn’t know what to expect, so when he flipped the pictures over, his eyes widened.
“Holy shit,” he mumbled, drinking in the photoshoot of Micah dressed up like a mermaid in dangerously sexy and provocative poses in front of and around a drum kit. The tail matched the tattoo on his arm, a tiny bikini top held her breasts up and whatever makeup she was wearing added to the sexy allure of the pose.
He pressed the photographs to his chest and glanced at Micah, who grinned from her position beside him on the couch. “You like?”
“You did this for me.”
“I’m your mermaid, right? Figured I’d make it official.”
“Fucking hell, Mick,” he breathed out, chest heaving and heart racing as he held the pictures out to stare at them again. There were six in total and in every single one, she was in a slightly more sexy pose. The final one had her topless, sultry eyes boring holes into his even through the printed image. When he could finally function, adjusting his hard dick and shifting around a little, nodded. “I got you something too.”
“Next year, we’re seriously sticking to the ‘no gifts’ rule, no matter what.”
He grinned as he set the photographs face down. “Next year, huh?”
“You’re stuck with us, Fletch, might as well get used to it.”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be, love bug.”
Getting to his feet, he rummaged around in his bag and pulled out a messily wrapped gift. Handing it to her, he dropped to sit beside her on the couch and smiled as she attempted to be gentle with the wrapping paper before giving up and ripping it apart. Her fingers brushed over the frayed Moleskin notebook, tracing his name that was carved into the center. When Micah’s eyes met his, nodded, and she carefully opened the notebook, landing on a random page.
“This is a notebook filled with you,” he said softly. “Memories, dreams, thoughts and lyrics. I wrote “Mermaid” on hotel stationery, but I put everything else into this. Songs I thought we could record, but never talked about. It became my Mick Journal.”
“Fletch…” she whispered, shaking her head as she turned the pages slowly, stopping every so often to touch a doodle or a word.
“I want you to have it. It’s as much a part of you as it is a part of me. Besides, I get to have you now, so I don’t need to write about pining for you from a distance.”
She laughed softly, a tear sliding out of her eye. caught it before it followed the curve of her cheek. “A part of me is still in shock that you thought about me all this time. That I made such an impact on you that night.”
“Before or after you, I’d never eaten every morsel of room service in a hotel bed while wrapped in bathrobes while a beautiful woman called me out on my taste in music.”
“For a musician, you really do have questionable taste.”
“I stand by the fact that Grace Slick was a legend of her time.”
She rolled her eyes and closed the notebook, setting it in her lap as she turned to him. “Thank you, Fletch. This is the most precious gift I’ve ever received.”
“Better not let your daughter hear you say that.”
“I heard that!” Emery yelled as she charged down the stairs. hurriedly put the mermaid pictures away and looked up as Emery slid into the living room. “If you’re done being romantic, can we watch a movie now?”
“Yup. ’s on popcorn duty, you’re picking the movie and I’m going to put everything away.”
He shook his head and shot Emery a pointed look. “You pick the movie, babe. Em and I are going to clean up and work on the popcorn.”
“What he said,” Emery responded, pouting playfully at him.
With the teenager by his side, gathered all the discarded wrapping paper. Then they worked together to put away all the leftovers, wiping down the kitchen while the popcorn did its job in the microwave. With two large bowls filled to the brim, they returned to the couch and sat on either side of Micah as she cued up The Nightmare Before Christmas .
This life, he could totally get used to it.