Nothing But This (Broken Pieces 2)

“I like Tina,” Harris said, shocking the hell out of Libby. “I’ve always liked her. But I’m the reason she and I could never be friends and never got along. If she hasn’t told you about it, then I can’t. But whatever caused this rift between you, it’s making her”—he paused, and his hand moved toward his chest and grasped something through his shirt—“sad. It’s making her so sad. And I have to tell you I’m finding it . . . difficult to see her sad.”

Wow. Forgetting for a moment what Tina could possibly be saying to Greyson, Libby stared at Harris in absolute wonder. How the hell had she missed this? How could she not have any idea what was going on with her two best friends? It made her feel like a complete jerk. Okay, she had been out of the country for a significant portion of time over the last few years and hadn’t often seen Harris and Tina in the same room together, but to her it had always seemed so black and white . . . Tina had once worshipped Harris, but something had happened to sour her feelings toward him. Whatever it was had caused a massive rift between them. One neither of them would discuss. Libby now acknowledged that—partly due to her own shortcomings as a friend—Tina hadn’t shared anything real with her for a long time. But Harris . . . he talked to Libby about pretty much everything. Yet his relationship with Tina, or lack thereof, had always been off limits. Not that he’d explicitly stated that, but he tended to change the subject whenever Libby even attempted to broach it. In the end it had been easier to just go with it.

Another mistake . . . Libby was starting to recognize that she had made plenty of those in her dealings with both Harris and Tina over the years. She should have pushed them both for answers. There was real history here, and it bothered her that she had no idea what the hell had happened between them. Worse, that she was only now even realizing that it must have been something huge for it to have affected them both so deeply.

She decided to tell Harris about Tina’s reaction to Clara, testing the waters, wanting to see how well he truly knew Tina. Perhaps he could help her shed some light on why Tina was the way she was around the baby. But Harris merely looked confused by her claim that Tina seemed to hate kids.

“She adores Clara,” he said, his voice brimming with certainty. Libby wanted to believe that, she really did. But as she tried to explain Tina’s puzzling behavior to Harris, it just seemed to baffle him even further.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but there has to be a reason for it, Libby. Talk to her.”

His staunch loyalty toward Tina was staggering, and Libby nodded dazedly. “I will, Harris. Of course I will. She’s my best friend, and I do want to figure this out . . .”

The stream of quiet, vehement words staggered to a halt, and Greyson, whose head was spinning with the recognition of so many lost moments, didn’t register it at first. It was only when he heard Olivia’s voice that he finally fought his way through the suffocating waves of guilt, despair, and absolute desolation.

His head whipped up as he desperately sought reassurance that Olivia did not hate him as much as he currently hated himself, but she was staring at Martine. She looked distraught, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and Martine appeared equally distressed.

Greyson leaped to his feet, nearly losing his balance when his knees almost refused to support him. Martine looked at him, and he could see sadness and, if not regret, then dismay in her gaze. It seemed like she was about to say something to him, and Greyson tried not to grimace at the thought of even more from Martine.

She was small, but she packed a hell of a wallop. Greyson didn’t think he could survive a second round with her. But Olivia asked her to leave, and Martine nodded before glancing at Greyson again. Her expression was troubled, but she said no more. She and Olivia exchanged a few more words before Martine left the room.

“Greyson?” Olivia sounded wary, and she was watching him uncertainly. Greyson wondered why she appeared so alarmed. Surely he didn’t look that bad? Or maybe he looked like he felt . . . like he’d been run over by a freight train. “Tina shouldn’t have been that . . . uh . . . blunt.”

“How much did you hear?” he asked hoarsely. His voice shocked him. He sounded like he had eaten nails for lunch.

“I think she was up to the time I nearly dropped Clara, freaked out, and rushed to the hospital. We went to the emergency room so often and for so many trivial things I was on a first-name basis with most of the staff.” Her voice was light, inviting him to share in the joke, but all Greyson could think of was how genuinely frightening each of those “trivial” things must have been for her.