More Than Anything (Broken Pieces 1)

“Fair point,” he conceded with a grimace. Tina tried very hard to keep the smugness she felt off her face and went back to her task. A few screws later, she sat back proudly and stared at the completed playpen.

“Done,” she stated, unable to keep the triumph out of her voice. She pushed the bulky but lightweight piece of furniture aside and picked up the next box. Car seat. It didn’t need much, just unboxing. It would have to be affixed in her car before she left to pick up Libby and Clara.

Harris cast her a sulky glare from beneath his fall of black hair, still working on the swing. She could feel him staring at her but chose to ignore the look. She placed the car seat on the sofa behind her before dragging out another box, this one a high chair.

“Don’t think she’ll be needing this for a good few months yet,” she muttered to herself.

“I just grabbed what looked useful,” Harris retorted defensively, and she refrained from rolling her eyes. Big man’s ego bruised quickly, it seemed.

She shrugged and looked around for something else. There was only the bassinet left, and she unboxed it quickly.

“That one looks complicated—I’ll do it,” Harris said, glancing up from the swing, which was still in several pieces in front of him.

“Uh . . . you just keep slogging away at that thing, Harris. I’ve got this,” she said in her most patronizing voice, and his dark-blue eyes sparked with something dangerous. He didn’t say anything, though, and she snorted disdainfully before unboxing the bassinet. She used the same method as before, arranging all the pieces in the order she thought she might need them, and half an hour later, she very proudly touched the old-school rocking bassinet and watched it swing gently back and forth.

Harris, who was still working on the swing, gave her a quick, disgruntled look before dropping his eyes back to his task. The silence between them over the last half hour had been interrupted only by his increasingly frustrated curses, and Tina, who hated being amused by anything Harrison Chapman said or did, couldn’t help being entertained by his irritation at his inability to complete the job at hand.

Tina said nothing, merely got up and began to industriously clean up the packaging scattered around her small flat. Then she moved the stuff she had assembled into the bedroom, which she intended to give up for Libby and Clara.

When she returned ten minutes later, Harris was standing in the middle of the living room—hands in his front jean pockets—glowering at the wobbly-looking swing in front of him and swearing steadily beneath his breath.

“It’s not quite right,” he acknowledged, without looking up.

“Yeah, I can see that,” she said, keeping her voice level, while—for the first time in memory—she wanted to laugh long and loud in this man’s presence. “I think you probably needed those as well.” She pointed down at a few scattered leftover pins and screws, and he glared down at them before pushing an irritated hand through his hair.

“They didn’t belong anywhere. I think they were just extras in case some of the others get lost.” He was bullshitting. They both knew that. But he was too stubborn to admit that he’d been defeated by a piece of baby paraphernalia, when Tina had assembled two and a half separate items in the same amount of time it had taken him to (barely) complete one.

Tina didn’t say anything in response to his nonsense and instead picked up the leftover odds and ends and set them aside. She would take the swing apart and fix it after he left.

“Well, thanks for your help,” she said, barely refraining from layering the last word with the sarcasm just clamoring to creep into her voice. She pasted a polite, impersonal smile on her face and stared at his imperfect yet arrogant nose in an attempt to avoid his eyes.

“I think it’s safe to say you didn’t need my help after all,” he said drily, his deep voice rich with self-directed amusement. The wry self-deprecation surprised her into glancing up and meeting his gaze straight on. “I never was much good with puzzles.”

“I remember,” she said, her voice husky.

The memory of a fifteen-year-old Harris, impatiently shoving aside a jigsaw puzzle and stating emphatically that it was “boring,” floated unbidden into her mind. Tina vividly recalled him claiming that even if it was raining, he’d much rather be skateboarding. He had departed without so much as a goodbye, leaving Greyson and thirteen-year-old Tina to complete the puzzle without him.

“Do you?” His voice took on a gruff note, surprise evident in the two words, and Tina was horrified that she’d allowed even that much to slip. She didn’t want to remind him of how much she had adored him throughout her teens.