More Than Anything (Broken Pieces 1)

“I want you to forgive Harris,” Tina told Smith when he finally deigned to answer his phone the following morning. She had been crying all night, hating the way things had ended with Harris. She had kept reaching for the phone, tempted to call him and ask him to come back so that they could figure out how to make things work between them. In the end she had decided against that, respecting his decision, even though—in her heart of hearts—she couldn’t bring herself to agree with it. Or even understand it. In the meantime, the least she could do was try to fix this one thing for him. “He only recently learned about Fletcher, and it hit him hard. He’s still trying to come to terms with that.”

Smith was silent for a moment before sighing. “It’s not just about the baby, Tina. He used you. My sister. There was a blatant lack of respect, of consideration, for both you and the friendship I shared with him.”

“I get that, Smith, and I’m sorry you feel that way. But this isn’t about you. It was never about you. Harris has been a good friend to you.”

“He fucking hasn’t, not when he’s known, for the last ten years, what he did to you.”

“I was a consenting adult, and I was on the pill. I thought that would be an effective form of protection, but I miscalculated. Harris did nothing wrong.” Smith didn’t ever have to learn about that damned bet. Especially since Tina now believed Harris had had very little to do with it.

“Morally—”

“God, Smith,” she interrupted, exasperated. “Spare me. I can sleep with whomever the hell I want to. Whether he’s your best friend or not.”

“Fuck, Tina!” She could practically hear the wince in his voice. “Don’t say stuff like that. It weirds me out.”

“Well, like it or not, you’re going to have to listen. Because I’m quite fed up with stubborn men acting like spoiled boys. Your friend needs you. You need him. I’m leaving today, and I’d like to leave knowing two of the men I care most about don’t hate each other because of me.”

“I don’t see why you can’t let me hang on to my anger just a little bit longer,” he said, using his most reasonable voice on a completely unreasonable comment. Her lips twitched.

“I love you, Smith. Take care of Harris for me. I’ll speak to you once I’m back home.”

He sighed, the sound heavy.

“Love you, too, sis. Drive safely.”

Chapter Sixteen

Letting Tina go was so much easier said than done. She texted him often. Nothing that ever required a response. Just pictures and memes and little stories about her life in Riversend. He never replied, but he couldn’t stop himself from reading them either.

And whenever he spoke with Grey—even though Harris never asked about her—his brother would volunteer information about Tina. She was doing well, the restaurant was flourishing, everybody liked her. She had framed pictures of Fletcher on her desk and on her walls at home now.

She was sad. She seemed lonely . . . and even when she smiled, it looked like her heart was breaking.

Fucking Grey.

He was doing to Harris what Harris had done to him all those months ago. Deliberately salting the wound in the hopes that Harris would “come to his senses.” But Harris believed he was being sensible.

“You’re a fucking moron,” Grey had told him one night, about a month after Harris had let Tina go. “The woman loves you, you love her. Why are you letting something that happened a decade ago keep you apart?”

“It’s not that simple, Grey,” Harris said. “We never had a choice back then. What happened between us ten years ago had been manipulated by external forces. She could have done so many amazing things, but that one encounter with me held her back. Stunted her emotional growth. I am the worst thing that ever happened to her, and I wanted her to have her life back.”

“Did you give her a choice?” Grey said, and Harris’s brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of his brother’s words.

“What do you mean?”

“Really, Harris?” Grey sounded exasperated and impatient with him. “You need me to break that question down for you? Did you ask her what she wanted? Because ten years ago, she willingly went into that room with you. She didn’t ask for anything that happened afterward, that’s true . . . but you were the one who didn’t have a choice back then, Harris. You didn’t know that they’d spiked your drink, didn’t know that they had forced that bet on you . . . didn’t even get to choose when or where you finally got to make love with the girl you’d been pining after for a year. And I get that now you’re all about trying to reclaim some of what you both lost back then . . . but you’re taking her choice away. And, in case you need it spelled out even more, that’s exactly what Spade and his merry band of dicks did to you.”