More Than Anything (Broken Pieces 1)

While Tina lay there, trapped by his weight and unable to get his final, groaning confession out of her head. She fell asleep with the words still ringing in her ears.

“Whachu doing?” Harris’s voice was muffled by a pillow, and he peeled open his good eye to catch Tina’s gaze as she dragged on her dress.

“Getting ready to do a walk of shame down to my car.” Tina had driven him home the night before. With his eye swelling at an alarming rate, he’d been in no fit state to drive himself.

“Whazza time?” he slurred. He looked shattered, which reminded Tina that he was probably still suffering from jet lag.

“Just after eight.”

“Fuuuuuuck!” He pushed himself up reluctantly and blinked sleepily. “I have a meeting at eight thirty.”

“Postpone it—you look far from professional right now. You look like a prizefighter. It’s kind of sexy but definitely not professional. And you have jet lag. Take some time to get acclimated, for heaven’s sake.”

He cracked his neck and opened his mouth with a jaw-popping yawn. “Where are you off to?”

“Back to my hotel, for a shower and change. I have a meeting with a real estate agent at nine.”

“See you tonight?” he asked, his voice deliberately nonchalant.

She sauntered over to the bed and bent at the waist to kiss him.

“What time?” she asked huskily.

“Eight. Meet at my parents’ place?”

“Sounds fine. Thank you for coming with me last night and . . . you know? Everything else.” She tried to keep the blush at bay but failed miserably, her face heating up at the memory of what “everything else” had entailed.

He grinned wickedly, the smile combined with his swollen blue eye and crooked nose giving him a decidedly roguish appearance.

“Oh, Bean, it was most definitely my pleasure.”

Harris was in the shower when he first realized it was there. He was so used to its weight that he didn’t notice it at first. In fact, his hand must have brushed over it a few times while he was soaping his chest before he registered its presence.

“Damn it, Tina,” he swore mildly as his fingers traced the familiar contours of his pendant. She must have slipped it over his head while he was sleeping. Part of him wanted to remove it immediately, but the other, much larger part was relieved to have it back. He had felt incomplete without it. The pendant had always made him feel more connected to Tina. And now that she knew he was wearing it, that attachment felt much stronger.

He left it where it was.

It was a crutch—he knew that—but he also knew that he was going to need something to lean on once he let her go.

After seeing his face, he had agreed with Tina’s assessment that he probably wasn’t fit to be seen in public and had postponed all his meetings and appointments. But he needed to speak with Smith. He wasn’t sure if his friend would be willing to meet with him, but Harris had to at least make the attempt.

When he called, he was stunned when Smith picked up on the first ring.

“What?” The word was loaded with hostility.

“We need to talk.”

“You looking to get your ass kicked again?” Smith asked belligerently.

“Look, Smith, Tina would be devastated if we don’t at least attempt to mend fences. She’d blame herself.”

“Don’t you fucking dare say her name!” Smith’s voice had a dangerous edge to it.

“I didn’t know about her pregnancy; she didn’t tell me.” Harris was trying to defend the indefensible, and he felt lower than a rat because of that.

“That’s beside the point, Harris! The point is, you got my eighteen-year-old sister pregnant! You seduced her when she was barely out of school! And then for ten years, you still acted like we—you and I—were friends! Like everything was still the same. When it wasn’t. When there was this between us.”

Fuck.

“Not that it makes any difference,” Harris muttered, feeling sick to his stomach, “but I’m in love with her. And if it makes you feel better, the feeling is not reciprocated.” His hand crept up to his pendant, clutching it through the cotton of his T-shirt. “So, if you want me to suffer, I’m suffering.”

Smith was quiet for a long time, the silence punctuated by nothing but the sound of his angry breathing.

“Good.” Smith severed the connection after that single, abruptly spoken word, and Harris screwed his eyes shut, mourning yet another loss.

Tina’s mother had called shortly after her meeting with the real estate agent and demanded—because the woman was incapable of making polite requests—that Tina join her for lunch. Tina had been tempted to tell her mother to stick her invitation where the sun didn’t shine, but curiosity had won out over indignation, and she’d agreed to lunch at the house with her mother.

Now she cursed herself for acquiescing to this awkward sham. She couldn’t remember the last time she and her mother had shared a meal without someone else present. Definitely not since before her pregnancy. And as she sat facing her freshly Botoxed mother, she futilely tried to gauge how the other woman was feeling.