It's a Beautiful Life

Chapter Twenty-One

Adrian's POV

       The progress that Peter and Hailey were showing over the last couple of months was great. Peter’s nightmares were becoming less frequent and I was glad that they could talk about everything they went through. They needed to get it off their chest and know that this doesn’t make them worthless like their real parents always told them.

      Now we are getting ready to celebrate Peter’s ninth birthday, and since it was on Halloween, he wanted a Halloween themed party. When he told us, Jesse couldn’t have been happier and had asked his parents if we could have it at their house.

      He wanted to set it up to make it look like a haunted house. I was a little iffy about that, it was going to be a bunch of little kids and I just didn’t want Jesse and Matt to go overboard with it, but I didn’t want to put a damper on their fun.

      We were lucky that Matt was going to be here, it was going to be a short visit before he was on his way back for another tour in Iraq. He seemed like he was doing better after the whole nurse thing, but you can tell he stilled cared for him.

      He wouldn’t talk much about it, he just wanted to forget about it all. He didn’t want to dwell on things he can’t change, we still wished that we could have helped him. Then we wouldn’t have to see him go.

      I walked into the living room and found them hanging spider webs along the ceiling, they were almost done. They really did an amazing job, they had lights hung up and ghost hung from the lights. They had jack-o-lanterns, black cats, skeletons, witches and vampires all over the room.

      The snack table was covered in a white tablecloth and fake blood spattered on it with black ragged cloth draped off the side. “Wow you two really went all out.” I said as I hugged Jesse and he kissed me.

      “Well Peter’s first ever birthday party, we want it to be memorable for him. He only turns nine once in his life.” Jesse said.

      “Yup he is going to be envied by all the kids at school.” Matt said as he stepped off the ladder. “So what else do we need to do before our birthday boy gets here?”

      I looked at my watch, we had a few hours until the party was going to start. “We need to finish making the food, I need to call Holly and ask her if she picked up the cake yet. Then of course set up the games and all the food and drinks, then get ready for the party.

      “Hmm and what are we dressing up as again?”

      “As ourselves because you couldn’t make up your mind on who you wanted to be.” Jesse just shrugged his shoulders, “So Matt who are you dressing as?”

      “Peter Pan,” he said as he folded up the ladder.

      “Peter Pan?” Jesse asked.

      “Yeah, the girls asked me to be Peter Pan since your dad didn’t want to, instead he is going to be Captain Hook.”

        "I get the feeling something bad is going to happen, you two tend to take it a bit over board." Jesse said.

        "No your dad takes it over board, not me. It's always the older brother’s fault, you know what I'm talking about Adrian. I bet there was time your brother tortured you or made you do things you didn't want to do."

      "Yeah that's true and since Jesse is the oldest he wouldn't know that but at least he didn't treat any of his siblings that way." I kissed him again, "Plus he could never be mean to any of them."