More Than Anything (Broken Pieces #1)(92)

Not that he minded. He welcomed the distraction. But the distraction wasn’t proving at all effective when the person he was hoping to be distracted from had been sending him text messages every day for the last five days.

Tonight, it was a picture of Clara in a tiny “Riversend Rockets” football jersey. Apparently, Spencer Carlisle had decided to make the older-versus-younger monthly football game official and had named the teams and ordered jerseys for all the players.

Team mascot!!

Harris smiled fondly at the picture of his niece in the blue-and-white jersey. He’d already received the same picture from both Libby and Greyson but decided not to mention that.

Cute

Number Nine. Like her daddy.

Another fact that Greyson had bragged about.

Naturally.

He didn’t know why she was so determined to stay in contact with him. He thought she’d be happy that he’d left, but while she never mentioned anything of a personal nature, she sent him random pictures every day. Told him how the restaurant was doing, what new marketing strategies she and Daff had cooked up. Yesterday she’d sent him a picture of the sunrise, and his throat had closed up unexpectedly at the familiar view, obviously taken from her swing.

Harris decided not to question this—whatever it was—anymore. He was going to accept it and expect nothing from it. At the same time, he had so many questions. Ones that he knew were best left unasked. How was she? Had she had any more nightmares since he’d left? Did she miss him? Was she happy?

He got up and padded to the hotel window and took a quick, grainy snapshot of the night skyline and sent it to her without any explanation.

Nice view.

It’s okay. Your view from the front porch is better.

No reply. Not for several minutes, and he went back to studying the documents, even though his concentration was shot.

Had his statement been too personal? The unspoken rules of this bizarre little text relationship appeared to be: keep it light and frivolous. Maybe his observation hadn’t been light enough.

Sorry. Got distracted. Somebody wanted to say “hi”! Eek! Nobody in this town seems to realize that I’m crap at small talk.

He grinned at that. That town was perfect for Tina. She needed to be drawn out of her shell, and the curious, friendly, and kind people of Riversend were just the ones to do it.

I think you’ll be an expert at it in no time. You’re THE MJ everybody is going to want to know you.

Dear God! NO! She added a screaming emoji to the message, and he chuckled. Crap! Gotta go. One of our new servers just spilled wine all over the mayor!

He was in the process of typing his response when she followed up with:

Ps. THE MAYOR IS HAVING DINNER AT MY RESTAURANT TONIGHT!! THE!! MAYOR!! Later. She followed the message up with a smoochie face, and Harris wondered if she even realized she had done that. He obsessed over that fucking emoji—work forgotten—for the rest of the night, wondering what, if anything, it meant.

The following Friday at about two a.m., his phone pinged, waking him from a sound sleep. He fumbled for it and was surprised to see Tina’s name on the screen. After that first night, she had been careful about not texting him after midnight, her messages usually coming after nine in the evening his time.

He clicked on the message and stared blankly at the voice note for a long time, his stomach knotting up nervously, before clicking the play button.

“Hey!” His eyes burned at the welcome sound of her excited voice. God, he had missed just hearing her speak. “Guess what? Your cheese-carver guy? His name is Alistair, and he’s in a band . . . a band! I mean, that’s a little obvious, right? But remember, I told you I think he has a crush on Ricardo, my manager? Anyway, it looks like that’s becoming a thing. But I digress . . . I thought it would be cool to have some live music on Friday nights, and I invited Alistair and his band to play. I know, I know what you’re going to say . . . it’s a risk. What if they’re crap and all that? But they’re not. They’re really freaking good. They’re getting ready to play their next set. Listen to this!”

The band struck up a familiar poppy tune, and Harris smiled when he heard Tina squeal in excitement, sounding for all the world like a giddy teen at a pop concert. If the cheering crowd was any indication, it sounded like she had a full house tonight, and that made him so damned happy for her. She had recorded the entire song, but Harris barely listened to it; he was too distracted by her squeals and her terrible singing when she chimed in with the chorus.

This was so much better than watching those clips of her with Fletcher. This wasn’t tinged with sadness. This was sheer, vibrant joy, and he adored it. He played it twice more before responding with a voice note of his own.

“And you had the nerve to criticize my singing? I could barely hear the band above your caterwauling, woman!”

He didn’t have to wait long for her response.

“Shuddup, Harris! You wish you could sing half as good as me!”

“No, seriously, Tina. There are dogs howling on the streets of Perth right now, thanks to you.” He knew she could hear the smile in his voice.

She sent him a picture in response to that. A selfie of her with a scrunched-up face, sticking her tongue out at the lens. It was taken in terrible light and had a grainy, orange quality to it, but he couldn’t stop staring at it.

“What the hell are you doing to me, Tina?” he moaned to himself, his thumb tracing the lines of her pretty, round face on his screen.