Tommy's Baby - Annie J. Rose Page 0,2

happily spoil them all. But I don’t plan to have this conversation again with any of you. I don’t have to justify my choices just because they’re different from yours,” I said.

“I’m not sure when I’ve seen you this serious,” he said, one eyebrow up. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Are you trying to get me to discuss my feelings?” I asked. “Ma? Is that you?”

He flipped me off and went to refill some beers. I turned to an older couple at the bar and offered them an appetizer sample.

“Do you have any of the sriracha drink?” the woman asked, a mischievous look on her face.

“My wife wants to end up in the ER tonight apparently,” her husband said, shaking his head.

“I told you I wanted to spice things up on this trip,” the woman joked.

“I didn’t realize you meant it literally,” he laughed.

I took his drink order and then went to mix her up a spicy drink. I even lit a sparkler and set it on top. She clapped her hands when she saw it. I saw the flash fire on his phone, and I turned to wink at him.

“Eddie, did you just take a picture?” She asked, mock exasperated.

“You can’t blame me for wanting a few pictures of my beautiful wife, can you?” he asked, working his charm.

Her cheeks turned pink. She smiled, looking pleased, and posed for him, a dazzling smile crinkling her eyes and showing even white teeth. He snapped another picture and took a drink of his beer—draft, not even a Guinness, the poor unadventurous sot. I grinned and walked away, leaving them to flirt. That was one thing I loved about tending bar. The connections I can make with people so quickly, the fact that I was a guest star in their lives. I could make a difference in minutes and even though I never saw them again, I knew I was a force for good.

Connor would say it was because I didn’t like commitment. He wouldn’t be wrong.

Chapter 2

Liza

I held the magazine with Tommy’s picture in it like it was a lucky charm. There had been a feature on the island of St. Martin. I’d found it while I waited at the dentist’s office. Flipped it open, all unsuspecting, and been faced with a black and white photo, a two-page spread, of Tommy standing shoulder to shoulder with four other men, all wearing dark t-shirts emblazoned with the logo for O’Shea’s Pub. His brothers and he had all been Navy SEALS, had all moved to the island afterward and started businesses. There he was, just like I remembered from more than a decade ago. The last time I saw him, he’d been just as handsome, not quite as heavily muscled. He definitely hadn’t had those tattoo sleeves that made him look dangerous, edgier than the sweet boyfriend I had lost. I couldn’t take my eyes off that picture, couldn’t stop thinking of him.

That article had been my lifeline. I’d bought my own copy of the magazine. I’d even brought it with me on the plane. A reminder of going back to where I’d started in a way. What led me to the place I was going to hide until I figured out how to untangle the mess I’d made of my life. I probably wasn’t even going to see him. It just made me feel better to be where he was. Same island, same town. The fact of his mere existence comforted me. It made no sense, but what had I done in the meantime that made any sense at all anyway?

Tommy O’Shea. My first kiss, my first everything. He was living the good life on a Caribbean island. He was probably married with four kids. Married to some gorgeous woman who wasn’t stupid enough to let him go when a long-distance relationship seemed hard like I had. It still made my stomach cramp to think about it. About Tommy having a wife who wasn’t me, having kids with someone else. There was no reason to feel so territorial, not anymore. I was in my thirties now. Not the dumb kid who’d let him go, and not the girl who had any claim on him at all. Not after so long.

I couldn’t shake the idea of Tommy holding a kid on his hip, pointing out a boat in the distance, that grin on his face, the one that always made me melt. I waved down a taxi and gave the driver the name of my