EPILOGUE

2014

We’ve managed to keep our appearance at the Triple M fundraiser secret; not even a hint of what we’re up to has appeared in the papers. I’m nervous as fuck. I usually make a short appearance on stage each year, and I’ve played on my own plenty since we lost Maca, but this is different. I’ll be fronting Shift, replacing their lead singer Jet Harrison, who had recently taken his own life. I would be singing a few songs by Carnage, and Conner Reed would take up the mic and we would perform a couple of Shift songs.

The lights go down and the place is in relative silence, considering it’s packed to capacity.

I hit the first notes of ‘With You.’ Reed follows me in on bass and the crowd goes wild. The curtain lifts and I swear the fucking building shakes.

I can barely see through the stage lights, but I know roughly where my family is standing, and I try to pick George out on the balcony.

This is one, of very many, that Maca wrote for her and I always worry, even after all these years, how she copes with hearing them.

When I’m done, I address the crowd with a lump in my throat and thank them all for coming. Reed then takes the mic and dedicates the next song to his girl. Rock stars, we’re all a bunch of pussies.

I’m pumped when we come offstage.

“You fucking rocked it, Reed. You slayed them.” I tell Conner. I really like working with this boy. He’s full of great ideas and we have very similar tastes in what we like to listen to. He’s looking to get out of the spotlight and I think he’s someone I could easily work, either producing or writing music with in the future.

It’s his first time up on stage since he’s lost his mate, so I make a point of telling him that it’ll get easier—never better, just easier.

Ash is waiting backstage with a bottle of Cristal and I’m feeling so wired that I know that the only thing that’ll bring me down from my rush is a special bit of Ash loving, so I drag her off to where I happen to know a rather spacious storage cupboard is situated.

All about the romance me—broom cupboard sex, and Cristal. I take my wife on the best dates.

Just thirty minutes later, we join the rest of our family up in the VIP bar, even all of the kids are with us this year.

I get a round of applause as we approach and lots of pats on the back.

“Did you phone ahead and tell them how good my performance in the cupboard just was?” I whisper into Ashley’s ear.

“You’re shagging was shit, but you play great guitar, Rock Star.” She whispers back.

Cheeky cow.

We spend the next few hours drinking and enjoying the company of the people we love most in the world.

Only one person is missing, but he’s never far from my thoughts.

Our lives have continued along without Maca. Our kids have grown, and music has continued to be made. For us, nothing much has changed. For Georgia? Her world is one that none of us thought would ever happen.

When Cam came into her life, or should I say, back into her life, none of us were best pleased and by none of us, I mean myself and my brothers. Ash, Jimmie, and my mum seemed to be over the moon. Ash admitted to me then that she always felt that if she and Maca hadn’t reconnected that night at Jimmie and Lens, then George would’ve ended up married to Cam. I had never seen them together, so I had no clue about their relationship back then. All I knew was that bloke worshipped the ground my sister walked on, and would do anything for her and their kids.

Georgia had been unbelievably lucky when first Jimmie, then Ash, offered to become surrogates when it was found that her eggs had been frozen.

I was shocked when Ash asked me if I would mind if she carried George and Cam’s child for them, and I honestly didn’t think she would actually see the whole process through.

She didn’t mind being pregnant, but she hated that she always gained so much weight.

I agreed, thinking that when it came down to it, she’d back out. She didn’t, and then I sort of had a wobble. I felt guilty. Maca was my best mate, my bro, and here I was letting my wife carry the child his wife had created with another man.

Len was in the same boat as me, so it was him I went and spoke to about how I felt, and all he said was, “Just think about how happy Maca would be to see her finally become a mother.”

I was sold and we were all over the moon when both of the girls fell pregnant.

When Ash found out she was carrying their twin girls, she wasn’t quite so ecstatic. She actually didn’t put on as much weight as she did with our own kids, but her belly just seemed to grow daily.

I thought that it might be a little weird making love to my wife, knowing that she had another man’s babies growing inside her, but it wasn’t. In fact, she just looked more beautiful to me because of the amazing gift she was giving to my sister.

Despite the fuck awful tragedy that had decimated our family for a while, we were now a happy and contented bunch. Despite the glare of publicity, our kids were all growing up great and were all as close to each other as I had remained to my brothers and sister.

Life was good for the Layton family, life was fucking good.

Oh, and that book? I hit delete and never showed it to a soul. Some stories are just best left untold.