“What?”
“You’re in love with me.”
He smiled, wiped away a tear that I’d lost. “I came across the world to set up a bar in front of where you’d moved. I think that should say it all.”
“Where are you living? How long are you staying? What…” I paused, my head spinning. “I’m in love with you.”
“I was kind of hoping you were. So, where do we start?”
“How about here. At the beginning. Want to see my apartment?”
“Don’t I get dinner first?”
We ate,talked, walked about Brooklyn. He took me to his rented apartment, a basic, small bedsit on a short lease because he planned to move aboveCòctels. He told me about the second place he’d seen for another bar, and I told him about my course. The nights we’d spent together after Livi’s party weekend felt like only yesterday, the hard brick wall he’d built around himself barely there.
“So where do we go from here?” We stood outside my apartment block, the traffic different background noise to what we’d had before.
His arms were around my waist, a few drops of rain starting to fall. “Wherever we want.”
“Then let’s go home first.”
“Where’s that?”
I put my arms around Tommy’s neck. “Wherever we both are. That’s where home is.”
He nodded. “I get that now.”
We walked into my apartment, time stopping then, stepping into a future that was only ours for the making.
Epilogue
Tommy
There was a time, a few years ago, when it would’ve been the sound of the sea that woke me up. It would’ve been early morning, and I would’ve had a day of jobs planned, maybe an hour or two at the gym before working a shift at the bar.
Today my alarm clock was not the sea, or even the first light coming through the window.
“Daddy, can I have cee-re- al?”
I opened an eye and the small person who looked ridiculously like me stood there wearing just his underwear and a big smile.
I opened the other eye and wondered if he and his sister had planned this: one to be up well into the wee small hours when the only people still awake were the partiers and parents of babies and toddlers, and the other to wake when every sane person should still be sleeping.
“Why do you want cereal?”
Leo gave me a sly grin. “Hungry.”
I sat up and looked at Jameson who was still sleeping, her fair hair cascading over the pillow, still a sight that made my chest feel as if it had grown ten sizes. She’d been up with our daughter, Aurora, until late, who was grouchy with the heat.
Both children had been born in New York, Leo being a bit of surprise two years after I’d surprised Jay by turning up there. Rory had been planned for a long time before she appeared and was now a chubby five-month-old who ruled our world.
This was our summer-long holiday, a full six months on the White Island where we’d met, six months with Livi and Gav to help with the babies, and hopefully give us some time to ourselves. Alone. For maybe an hour before we started to miss the kids.
I yanked myself out of bed, promising that I’d have at least an hour asleep on a lounger later, and picked up Leo. He was adventurous and continually full of energy, reminding both of us of his Aunt Lala.
I carried him downstairs to the kitchen in Safir, sitting him on the counter while I dug around for something that resembled cereal without the sugar. Once fed, there was a good chance he’d amuse himself for an hour, before demanding to play ‘sharks’ in the pool.
This was my life now. I ran bars, had picked up a couple of restaurants and even a hotel, keeping my business well away from my family’s empire. Jameson had qualified as an architect, specialising with a firm who designed houses in holiday destinations, such as Ibiza.
