The Good Life

Jack

~Seven Years Later~

"Happy Birthday Bass!" Everyone cheered as we finished singing happy birthday to him. Today was his seventh birthday and Alex I did everything to make it special for him. All of his family came over to spend his big day with him. My mom even flew in yesterday morning and she was staying with us all week.

Izzy, Lynn, Vic, and Mike all drove here yesterday to be here for today. Izzy ended up moving to Los Angeles and staying in a studio apartment with Lynn while they both went to college. The apartment was a few minutes away from Mike and Vic's and he and Izzy managed to fix their relationship. They had been together for five years now. Alex and I had been raising Bass while they both lived their lives in Los Angeles. At first Izzy asked us to watch him while she went to UCLA to get her bachelors so she could manage the Glamour Kills magazine. After her four years of college, Bass was so attached to Alex and I and the thought of him having to leave us bothered all of us. So Alex and I just agreed to keep him. He knew we were his grandparents and he knew Vic and Izzy were his parents, but we're his guardians.

Alex and I agreed to hold off on our trip and retirement until Bass was gone off to college. Alex was going to be sixty-two and I would be sixty-one when Bass graduated high school so we were both going to retire around that time. It didn’t bother Alex as much as I thought it would, having to put our trip on hold. I think that’s because we both got empty nest syndrome when Izzy left home and having Bass here helped to fix that.

"Papa can I open my presents now?" Bass asked impatiently.

"Yeah honey, let me grab the first one for you." I walked over to his gift table and grabbed some of his presents. Then I handed one to him so he could open it.

I gave Bass the gift from Rian and Cass first. It was a new game to go with his Xbox. He and Alex spend so many hours playing video games so this was just going to contribute to that. I wasn't allowed to play with them since I 'suck at video games' according to them.

"Thank you Uncle Rian and Aunt Cass!" Bass exclaimed.

"You're welcome Sweetie!" Cass told him.

Next I handed Bass two gifts from Vicki and Emilio and Oli and Hannah. I knew both of his presents since everyone called to see if he wanted certain gifts. I watched him happily open each gift and thank them for his new toys.

"He should open our gift next." Alex said excitedly and I smiled as I went to go get it. He couldn't wait to see Bass's face when he opened it. It was more of a present for both of them.

"Here ya go." I said as I sat the boxes down in front of him.

Bass opened each box and saw the collection of Lego Star Wars building toys. He fell in love with the series when Alex showed it to him over the summer. He gasped after opening each gift with a different Lego toys inside.

"Thanks Pops, thanks Papa!!" He exclaimed. He went to hug Alex and then me.

"Alex is going to build that whole thing before Bass has the chance to touch it." Oli joked and I laughed. He was telling the truth.

I handed Bass more presents from May and Danny and Austin and Tay. While I watched him open the first gifts I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see it was just Izzy trying to get my attention.

"Papa can I talk to you really quick?" Izzy asked.

“Yeah of course.” I nodded.

She motioned for me to follow her to my bed room and I did. Once we were inside she closed the door. She looked pretty worried so I knew what she had to say was pretty serious. I sat down on my bed and waited for her to talk.

". . . I'm pregnant." She finally said.

"You're what?? Izzy again?? I thought you were on birth control." I said.

"I was, but you know how forgetful I am." She said making me lightly chuckle.

"Oh my god, does Vic know?"

"No, but I'm not really worried about telling him. I'm more worried about telling Bass. I don't want him to get confused and think that Vic and I didn't want him because we're going to raise the new baby." She wiped away a tear that fell down her cheek.

"Izzy, I'm sure he'll understand. Maybe more when he gets a little older, but he'll know you couldn't take care of him at such a young age. And I'm sure he's happy that you and Vic are still in his life anyways." I assured her.

"You really think so?"

"Yeah, I do."

"I don't think I can thank you and Daddy enough for all you've done for me." She said and I stood up to hug her.

"Your happiness is thanks enough." I told her and kissed the top of her head.

We pulled apart and I wiped a few more tears from her eyes. "Come on, let's go enjoy the rest of Bass's party." I told her and she nodded.

We walked back into the living room and saw Bass, Alex, Oli, Austin, and Rian on the floor playing with toy cars and a racetrack Bass opened up from one of his gift bags.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked and they all looked up at me.

"We were just testing these to make sure they worked." Alex lied and I playfully rolled my eyes.

"Come on, Bass you have to finish opening the rest of your gifts. Then you can come back and play." I chuckled.

“Okay.” He sighed.

We went back into the kitchen and watched Bass finish opening up the rest of his presents. He got so many new toys and money from all of his relatives. We turned one of the guest rooms into a play room for him and it was starting to become a little over crowded.

"Papa now can I go play with my toys??" Bass begged.

"Yeah go ahead." I said and he quickly ran off to play.

I went over to cut his birthday cake since he forgot all about it. As I began to cut pieces for everyone Vic walked over to talk to me.

"Hey Jack?" He said to get my attention.

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering if I could speak to you and Alex alone for a second?" He asked and I nodded. He and Izzy were already keeping secrets from each other like Alex and I used to.

"Yeah we can talk in the dining room just let me get Alex really quick." I said. Vic walked into the dining room and I walked over to get Alex.

"Hey Vic wants to talk to us." I told him.

"About what?" He asked.

"I'm not sure he just asked if he could talk to us. Come on." I lead us to the dining room, away from everyone else, where Vic was. He was sitting at the table so we sat across from him.

"Hey so okay I was wondering if next weekend Izzy and I could keep Bass so we can take him to Disneyland for his birthday?" He asked.

"Yeah of course you can. I'm sure he'll really like that." I told him.

"Yeah he'll love spending time with you two." Alex added.

"Okay great.... but also I was wondering if it would be okay if I proposed to Izzy there." He timidly asked. I'm pretty sure that question caught me and Alex off guard because neither of us said anything for a minute or two.

"I think we're gonna have to say no to that." Alex said and I hit his leg.

"Alex!" I scolded him.

"What? He asked and I gave him an answer." He said as if he did nothing wrong. I rolled my eyes and turned back to Vic.

"Look Vic, if you can honestly tell us that you're ready to spend the rest of your life with our daughter then yes you have my blessing." I told him.

"I really love her." He said sincerely and I nodded.

"Then we're okay with it. Just make sure you take lots of pictures." I said and he smiled.

"Wait let me just warn you now so there'll be no surprises in the future." Alex began and I sighed but let him finish. "Pretty much my whole life I've wished to know what it feels like to beat the life out of someone, but no one has ever made me angry enough to actually do it. But if Izzy comes to us once and I do only mean once with a single tear caused by you, I will finally get wish. Am I making myself clear?" Alex threatened.

"Y-yes s-sir." Vic stammered with wide eyes.

"Then I guess you have my blessing too." He mumbled.

"T-thank you both s-so much. I promise I won't let you or her down." Vic said and got up to leave. Once Vic was out of the room I turned to Alex.

"Was all of that really necessary?" I giggled.

"Yeah I had to let him know the consequences of hurting my little girl." Alex told me.

"She's not little anymore, Lex."

"Yeah she is. She'll always be our little girl." He said. He placed his arm around me and I cuddled into him. "You don't think Izzy getting married so young is a mistake do you?" He asked.

"I think that we have to let her figure that out on her own. She has to be able to make and fix her own mistakes. We made plenty of our own mistakes and we're still happily married so maybe they'll turn out the same."

"Hopefully they don't make the same mistakes we made. I don't think anyone is strong enough to endure what we went through."

"Yeah that's true." I chuckled and began to play with his fingers. "We have had an extraordinarily life." I said and he agreed and kissed my forehead.

"And we still have many more years to come."

Notes

Sorry the epilogue is kind of short, I wanted it to seem like any regular chapter since its not really the end of their life story!

My heart can't accept that this is the actual end of this. Guys it's been almost three years!! I was a freshman in college when I first started writing this and now I'm a senior. And this was my first fanfiction story ever! I wanted to write this story as just a look into the lives of Alex and Jack meeting and falling in love which is why this story I guess didn't really have a theme. But I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out!

I can not thank every one of you enough for reading this story. Especially thank you to the people who were here from the very beginning to the end. I didn't think I would have so many people read/enjoy this story. I wish I could have wrote the story for even longer, but I've already dragged it out enough lol

Thank you all soooo much!! I will be on here for the rest of my natural born life so feel free to message me, or friend me whenever you'd like. I'm always up for reading new stories so if you're writing one please tell me!!! I really wanted to be finished with writing after I finished this story but I've been kinda writing a new story (it'll be shorter than this lol) I don't know if I'll do for sure. But I'll be here <3