Oh. My. Fucking. God.
It was Tommy.
3
Thought of the day…
If you ever run into your ex unexpectedly,remain calm and hold your head high.
(Let’s be honest,they’re probably in more of a tizz than you are.)
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
There’s a reason I chose not to see Tommy in person: his presence wielded a destructive power that not even the Divorced Diva could protect me from, triggering heart palpitations, perspiration, shortness of breath…
And then there were the spine tingles, the heat pooling between my thighs, my sodden knickers.
Tommy was what you’d get if you blended heartbreak and lust into a smoothie.
And until that night, I’d limited our contact to occasional text messages and very rare phone calls. Call it self-preservation.
But there he was, in the flesh, so incongruous with his surroundings that at first, I couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
Then it hit me like a boulder dropping on my head. Tommy was on Aetheria. With me. And Julian. Two ex-husbands in the same place. And they knew each other! It truly was a waking nightmare, my compartmentalised worlds colliding.
Next thing, I’d discover that Julian had booked Rick’s band as the entertainment!
Tommy walked closer, looking smart in fitted navy shorts, tan boat shoes, and a white Polo shirt with Aetheria’s logo – a teal wave with a yellow rising moon – sitting over his left pec. The shirt moulded to his still-impressive physique, the short sleeves showing off his tanned forearms, and his dark-brown wavy hair was slightly longer than I remembered. It suited him.
Why does he have to be so fucking sexy?
And more to the point, why does he have to be so fucking HERE?
Contemplating the answers to these questions made it so loud inside my head that I almost missed Julian introducing Tommy asTom.
Tom?
Thomas – absolutely, it’s his name. And to me, he’s always been Tommy. But never justTom.
He smiled as he approached the table and I couldn’t look away. Iwantedto. In fact, I wanted torunaway – go hide in my villa under the covers, my hands clapped over my ears.
But I was stuck there, frozen to my chair.
When Tommy finally clapped eyes on me, his smile didn’t just fall away, it tumbled off his face like snow tumbles down a mountain during an avalanche. We stared at each other for a thousand years until Julian’s voice broke through our shared fugue.
‘Tom, this is my ex-wife, Ally. She’s joining us for the week – she’s aninfluencer,’ he added, imbuing the word with pride. I am much more than that, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to be offended.
‘Uh, hi, Ally,’ Tommy stammered. He jutted his hand out so forcefully, his fingertips poked my right boob. We both recoiled and I redirected my gaze to the tabletop.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered.
‘That’s okay. Hi,’ I replied, flapping my hand in a half-hearted wave. I didn’t dare look at Julian, who must have been wondering what the bloody hell was going on.
‘Hi,’ Tommy said again.
So, he was as taken aback as I was.
More questions swarmed inside my head like midges at dusk.
