More Than Anything (Broken Pieces #1)(93)
You sound tired! Sorry I woke you. But I had to share the news. Back to text.
The band’s good. Well done. Glad the evening was a success.
She sent him a thumbs-up emoji, followed by a snoozing one.
He didn’t reply but fell asleep still staring at that beautiful picture.
“Hi, MJ! Loved the jam session last night,” someone called as Tina walked down Main Road to MJ’s. The townspeople had taken to calling her MJ and often went out of their way to greet her or chat with her when they saw her around town. At first it had been a little unnerving to have random people striking up conversations with her, but Tina felt less awkward about it now. She even knew some of them by name.
She was starting to feel a lot more integrated into the town, and after a rocky first month, the restaurant was doing well. They were heading into their eighth week of business now, and MJ’s had regained its status as the favorite eating-out spot for locals. People could not stop raving about the new menu.
Libby had been pushing to do the dessert-menu thing for quite some time, and after doing a little market research on some of their competitors in surrounding towns, Tina had decided that it was a unique enough idea to give it a go. That decision had paid off in spades. The dessert-tasting menu was a hit with everybody, and naturally Libby was happy, since it gave her the excuse she needed to continue experimenting with new flavor combinations and cutting-edge techniques. MJ’s was acquiring a reputation for outstanding desserts, and people were traveling from other towns just to sample Libby’s Wednesday-night dessert-tasting menus.
Tina was also very pleased with her decision to offer live music on Friday nights. It drew in a younger crowd, who traveled from surrounding towns grateful for the opportunity to dance and hang out without having to drive nearly an hour out of their way. Alistair and his band now had a regular Friday-night gig with them, and Tina was trying to find other acts to support them.
It was hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, she would have been petrified to make these bold decisions. She would have considered them and dismissed them as too daring, too out there, and doomed to failure. Now she was eager to try new things, happy to experiment and see what worked. She often talked things through with Libby, and sometimes with Daff. Even though the woman had had her baby—a beautiful little boy named Connor—a few weeks ago and wasn’t freely available to help out anymore, she was always happy to have a quick chat. But Tina was becoming more confident in her business acumen and was starting to make a lot of decisions without seeing the need to go to someone else for validation first.
In fact, the band had been all her, and she felt a thrill of excitement and pride whenever she saw the crowd they drew.
Business was booming, life was good, and, despite all the wonderful things happening, Tina was staggeringly lonely. Which was odd, because she was surrounded by so many amazing people. People she liked and who cared about her. Her brothers had started calling more often; Smith had even visited a couple of times to check out the restaurant. Conrad and Kyle were constantly offering unsolicited advice and messaging random ideas for the restaurant, and none of them ever had a negative word to say. Which was a welcome change.
Libby and Greyson appeared to be at an impasse with each other, but it didn’t look like Greyson was going anywhere soon. He had become something of a friend to Tina. He was still her next-door neighbor, seeming disinclined to find a better place, and would often invite himself over for breakfast in the mornings, since he was a truly terrible cook. Even worse so than Tina.
Logically, Tina had no reason to be lonely. Only . . . she was. And her loneliness was only alleviated when she was texting Harris. They had graduated to more frequent voice notes, and Tina often wished she were brave enough to actually call him and have a real-time conversation with him. He was still in Perth; he had been there for nearly six weeks, but he had mentioned during their half-text, half-voice-note conversation last night that it looked like he’d be heading home within the week. The news had made her heart race, because she wasn’t sure how having him back in the same country would affect their nightly texting ritual.
It hadn’t escaped her notice that she was always the one instigating contact. He never texted first, and she knew it was probably because he was uncertain about what the acceptable boundaries of their relationship were. Not that Tina knew. She just liked being in contact with him, sharing her daily little triumphs and failures with him. As much as she liked hearing about his.
“Morning, Tina,” Ricardo called from his front-of-house spot, where he was chatting with the waitstaff, who had formed a loose semicircle in front of him.
“Hi, guys. Sorry I missed the meeting,” she said. Ricardo usually had a morning meeting with his waitstaff, and while Tina tried to attend most of them, she’d had yoga with Lia this morning and was running half an hour late. “Ricardo, I’m sure you’ll let me know if anything came up. And I think it’s time, people. Get ready!”
Ricardo tossed her a thumbs-up, and she grinned before making her way into the kitchen, where Libby was having a similar meeting with the kitchen staff.
“Morning!” she said cheerfully. “Am I in time?”
“In time for what?” Libby asked with a confused frown, and Agnes nodded and grinned wickedly before everybody started singing “Happy Birthday.” The waitstaff flooded into the kitchen, and Agnes produced a large cake from beneath one of the countertops, with Happy Birthday, Libby sloppily iced on top of it.