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“I’d love to. I don’t have any vacation time coming and have to work over Labor Day this year, but Saturday and Sunday sounds fun.”
She didn’t admit to Tony that she still felt shy around his family when they were all together, and she tended to latch on to Joey’s girlfriend, Candy, or Mike’s girlfriend, Aisling. The three Irish girls, Big Mike called them.
Watching the Saint men play beach volleyball was an activity made for
. Even Big Mike, who didn’t play, wore board shorts and made an imposing figure on the beach. But it was the personage of the brothers that made other beachgoers stop to watch. There was no getting around it, they were all gorgeous.
At the beach, Bridget discovered too late that she was a big hit among the men in her bathing suit, so she took to wearing a T-shirt over it most of the time, unlike Aisling, who wore a thong bikini, her perfectly round rear end a pleasure for even the women to look upon, and Candy, who was plus size and let it all hang out. And Bridget never nursed, even with a Hooter Hider, unless she was hidden away in the bedroom.
“They’ll get over it,” Roberta said. “I hate you having to hide like that.”
“It’s okay. It’s better for Tony if I don’t. He won’t have to referee.”
“Men can be a bunch of idiots sometimes.”
Roberta used words likeidiotand the R word to describe certain people of lower intellect or behavior freely, and it bothered Bridget, making her cringe at times, although she understood it was in jest. It was Roberta.
“They’re probably curious. Tony said he’d never seen a woman nurse a baby.”
“I guess not. We are a family of men. That’s why I like having you around.” She placed a glass of iced tea on the nightstand. “This will help your milk come in.”
“Tony told you?”
“He did. We Googled it this morning.”
Over a few days, Bridget had noticed that Flynn was hungry all the time, and when she pumped, there wasn’t much there. After a sleepless night, she gave him a supplementary bottle of formula, and he gobbled it right up.
“Maybe you need to call the doctor,” Tony said.
Monday morning when she had a break, she called and talked to the nurse practitioner, who didn’t miss a beat. “Could you be pregnant again?”
Like someone had thrown a bucket of hot mud at her, Bridget’s face contorted.
“Are you there?” the nurse asked.
“I’m sorry. Yes, I’m here. I’ll take a test.”
They said goodbye, and with a heart pounding like a drum in her chest, Bridget got out her calendar. She hadn’t had a period since she’d had Flynn, and the doctor told her it was normal. As if the universe didn’t want her to dwell on it, the alarm blasted, scaring her, so she popped up in her chair. It was central dispatch.
“Multi-vehicle accident on the fifteen…”
So the rest of the morning was spent dealing with that, while in the back of her mind, all she could think of was the impact of having another baby. Irish twins, although Flynn was almost five months old, not really. But a newborn and a year-old baby? Putting her head down on the desk, despair was dangerously close to taking over, and then she’d never get through the day. The best thing to do was to focus on work.
Then she thought of Tony Saint and she smiled, albeit involuntarily. Sweet Tony. He’d returned to the beach that morning when she left for work. Imagining him roughhousing with his brothers at the water’s edge made her smile again. They were a good-looking bunch of men and boys. Younger brother Leon was huge like Big Mike and had a penchant for lifting his brothers over his head and throwing them in the water. On Sunday, he did it one at a time, his older siblings keeping on their toes to stay away from him. They definitely loved each other.
She didn’t know Tony well enough to predict what his response would be if she was in fact pregnant, but she figured it would be on the upset side of the scale. He’d be worried about the impact it would have on his younger brothers. Obviously, if she was pregnant, the precautions they’d taken were not enough.
“You’re overreacting,” she said out loud, straightening up.
Like an omen, her cell phone beeped and it was Tony.
“I got here and it sucks without you. I should have stayed at your place with the baby.”
“Aw, you’re so nice. Go, have fun. Your last days of summer at the beach.”
They made small talk about the calls she’d gotten, the MVA and a small brush fire. Hopefully, things would stay quiet.
“I’ll go to the Clarks’ and get the baby and meet you at five.”
