Modern Family

Day to Day

           

           

His mornings had always been loud. Being the youngest of three boys meant he often woke to pillows being thrown at his head and a creative spread of vulgar nicknames being shouted in his direction. Being on tour with his best friends was much the same, only the shouting was to tell him they were running late to that morning's slew of interviews.

Nowadays, his mornings consisted of an entirely different sort of ruckus.

It began like clockwork at seven am. First the door would creak open and then he'd feel the bed dip under the weight of a new body. Next, light pushes against back and shoulders, which, when met with no reaction, transitioned into jumping and high pitched chanting.

"Daddy, daddy, wake up! It's Saturday!"

Groaning, Jace squeezed his eyes shut briefly before allowing them to flutter open and adjust to the daylight and the outline of his four year old daughter standing with her feet planted on either side of his hips.

"It's Saturday!" Savannah Russo repeated, bouncing on the bed and causing her blonde curly ponytail to do the same. "You know what that means?!"

There was no possible for him not to know what it meant. Savannah had been gushing about her ballet recital since the moment it was announced three months ago. Her excitement had rubbed off on Jace and he and the boys had spent many a night watching her rehearse her parts over and over.

"It's dance day!" He widened his eyes and puffed out his cheeks because he knew it always made her laugh. This time was no exception. Her tinkling giggle filled the air and automatically caused him grin because Jace couldn't possibly be unhappy while Savannah was smiling.

"Hey, Savi," Jace lowered his voice, his eyes sparking with mischief as his hands came to rest on her ankles. "Wanna go wake your Uncle Ry?"

Grinning, she nodded rapidly, dropping to her knees and swinging her legs to the side so she could jump off the bed, reaching out to grab her father's arm and tug him out as well.

Jace laughed as he threw back the covers, allowing his daughter to pull him down the hall where his band mate was sleeping.

Sometimes Jace still couldn't believe this was his life. When he was seventeen and New November was doing their first international headline tour, he never would have imagined that at twenty-five, he'd have someone as amazing as Savannah. Sure, he'd always wanted kids eventually, but he assumed it would be later in life when he'd had time to figure everything out and get his shit together. So when he met up with a girl he'd had a fling with in London a year earlier and she told him she'd had a baby, he was more than shocked. And when she told him that she wanted him to take full custody, he was speechless. Over the course of five minutes, he'd gone from being excited that he could finally legally drink in the United States to being a father and that shift was terrifying.

But he couldn't say no. He'd taken one look at Savannah and his heart had melted.

The first few months were rough, but he owed a lot of his sanity to the boys. They'd rallied around him when he told them the news, and the four of them had moved into a house together in the suburbs of Baltimore, where they all adjusted to being father figures. Jace called on his mother for help whenever he was desperate, but as he looked back, he couldn't help but think that those long nights of trying to get Savannah to eat or sleep and the days spent figuring out how to change diapers had made him into a better man.

When Savannah was a baby, he'd taken her on tour because although raising a child in the midst of his touring and recording schedule was hectic and crazy, he couldn't bear to leave her behind. Besides, he always had the boys around to help and there was no one he trusted more than the band mates he considered brothers. As she got older, the boys had agreed to space out their albums and tours so she could have some semblance of stability and they spent six months of the year at home, which is how she ended up taking ballet classes.