Page 6 of The Bartender's Baby

None of them agreed, and I barely restrained from flipping them the bird.

“Uncle Nate!”

I stopped and bent down, catching Amelia—Jude’s daughter, who’d recently turned six—when she jumped at me. “Hey, little Lu.”

She played with the beanie on my head. “Where are you going?”

“Running some errands,” I lied because she wouldn’t understand what it meant for me to have to pick pieces of my brain up off the floor.

“Wanna play with us?”

“No thanks. Maybe another time, okay?”

“’Kay!”

The girl couldn’t control the volume of her voice to save her life, but I loved her even more for it, and I hugged her to me, kissing the side of her head. That was when the rest of the rascals noticed me, the lot of them scurrying over. My grandfather, the one I named Walt’s after, always joked I was like Saint Francis. Kids and animals flocked to me.

I handed out hugs and high fives to Finn, Scarlett, Tucker, and even Sebastian, Jude’s eleven-year-old, who clearly didnotwant to be here anymore. Same, kid. Same.

“All right, you heathens. I need to get out of here.” I shook off Finn from climbing on my back and patted Amelia’s head before setting her down. When I looked back at their dads, they all waved cheerily at me like the bunch of assholes they were.

In my car, I slouched behind the wheel and pulled up the internet browser on my phone to searchpregnancythen clicked on the first link. It was for an app that I immediately downloaded because of the fetus growth chart. Tabitha hadn’t told me anything about what she planned on doing with it, but…

Fuck.

I didn’t want kids.

Nothing about being a father interested me, when my own relationship with my father didn’t exactly set a great example.

And yet…

Fuck.

Why did the idea of Tabitha’s baby have me clicking on the picture for fourteen weeks to find out it’s the size of a lemon?

Why were they comparing fetuses to citrus fruit?

And did they all look like shrimp?

Did Tabitha know she was growing a shrimp in her belly?

Did she actually go home like I told her to? I’d sure as shit throw her over my shoulder and make her go home if I had to.

Because I loved her and wanted what was best for her…

I loved her.

I loved Tabitha Reynolds, my bartender.

Fuuuuuuck.

TWO

TABITHA

Ididn’t go home from Walt’s because Nate told me to.

No. I went home because I was exhausted. My replacement showed up at five o’clock on the dot with a big smile, and I didn’t fight it. I gathered my things from the office, and since Nate had yet to return, I left with a nod toward Juanita and Mickey, meeting my Lyft outside the back door.

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