by S. E. Harmon
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Other Books by SE Harmon
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Love Is
S.E. Harmon
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, places, or events is coincidental and not intended by the author.
If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case the author has not received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Love Is
Copyright © 2018 S.E. Harmon
All rights reserved.
ISBN: (ebook) 978-1-945910-79-1
Inkspell Publishing
5764 Woodbine Ave.
Pinckney, MI 48169
Edited By Jessica Martinez
Cover art By Najla Qamber
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. The copying, scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions, and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
OTHER BOOKS BY S.E. HARMON
The P.I. Guys
Stay With Me
So Into You
Rules of Possession
The Blueprint
A Deeper Blue
P.S. I Spook You
DEDICATION
To my mother.
Everything I am is because of you.
And my sister, who doesn’t seem to understand if I don’t get to be Batman, neither of us gets to be Batman. Dilly dilly!
CHAPTER ONE
Thanks to whoever suggested making lemonade when life hands out lemons. Really. But just for accuracy’s sake? Unless life was also handing out sugar, that shit would still be bitter.
On second thought, I might have been inching slightly past the bitter lemonade mark. Finding out that my ex-fiancé was engaged again? Within eight months of breaking it off with me? That was more like getting hit by a lemon-filled Mack truck.
I drummed my fingers on the countertop, waiting for my latest customer to make up his mind. He was hemming and hawing, and turning the simple task of dropping off an iPhone for repair into a task of herculean proportions. His bald head gleamed under the muted store lights as he stared down at his phone.
My fingers itched to turn the closed sign. One tiny little flip, and I could be done for the night. I wanted it so bad, my mouth watered a little. The moment this customer left, I was going to flip that sign so hard, it might just fly off its chain. That would give me plenty of time to think about the direction my life had suddenly taken.
I’d gotten the news online, of course. Facebook, that swill-peddling, ill-mannered beast often known by the more benign term of social media, had been more than happy to bring me the news. That would teach me to peruse social media during work hours. It was a hard lesson, but it had to be learned.
Despite a decidedly auspicious middle, my work day had started out well enough. No lie—that was mostly because one of the techs brought in donut holes and left the extras in the break room. If I hazarded a guess, I probably would have said it was Jason—quiet, thoughtful, and my favorite. Wally, another of our techs, had meandered by my office to announce the arrival of the donut holes, which catapulted him to my newest favorite. Sorry, Jason, it was a nice thirty seconds. The other fifteen selfish techs in my employ who didn’t think donut holes were worthy of an announcement were now dead to me.
Anyhoozle. The very image of decorum, I’d nearly broken an ankle getting to the break room and snagged the last two. I’d also made a mug of coffee in the Keurig and clutching my bounty, made my way back to my desk.
A donut clenched between my teeth, I’d been leisurely browsing my Facebook feed. And then it happened. I saw the announcement and my finger actually stuttered on the mouse. I scrolled down a bit and hurriedly back up, just to make sure I’d read what I thought I’d read. Perhaps by some trick of the light, I’d imagined it?
But no, there it was, sandwiched between two other random postings. Adam’s engagement announcement, accompanied by sixteen exclamations and two hearts. I stared at the photo. They were obviously having an unspoken competition about who could be more tan or smiley, hugging one another in front of an ocean view.
I cursed myself for not updating my Facebook list. I was pretty sure when I got dumped, I was supposed to unfriend that person. And anyone they can stalk my page through. It was in the getting dumped handbook, for crying out loud. Right after the “Don’t Set His Crap on Fire, You’re Too Cute for Jail” chapter. But I didn’t update my Facebook very often and I never changed my friend list, so here I was, getting updates from that smiley, overly tan, pearly-toothed bastard.
Sixteen pictures. I told myself not to click. Don’t click on the picture and see what was next. But much like a teenager in a slasher movie who just must see what was behind that darkened door, I clicked through the engagement party album. Sixteen pictures, each more gleeful than the last. After going through the album again, I realized why she’d seemed so familiar.
She’d been his teaching assistant. Or at least that was what I’d thought TA stood for. Nicole. “Nic” to her friends. “Dearly departed” if I could get my hands on a weapon and a credible alibi. She was blonde-haired, brown-eyed, and overly fond of mix and match bikinis. Worse than that, from her various postings, she actually seemed nice. Nice! The nerve of that woman.
I made an irritated noise. I couldn’t even hate her properly.
I’d sat there, staring at the screen for at least another five minutes. Then I’d pasted on a brave face and got back to work. With some intensive physical therapy and a pinch of luck, I was eighty percent sure I would eventually regain the ability to blink. So there was that, at least. I’d been positive my morning couldn’t get worse. That was before getting stuck having a conversation with someone who didn’t seem to understand that having an electronic device fall into a bathtub is a very bad thing.
My customer slipped his warped phone back in the Ziploc baggie, which also held a helping serving of Uncle Ben’s finest, and zippered it shut. “I can power it on for about three minutes at a time before it goes back off.” He treated me to a suspicious glare from behind wire-rimmed glasses. “You think the rice will help?”
For a phone that had been underwater for five minutes? Maybe. If that rice has been blessed by Harry Potter. I smiled encouragingly and tried to tug the baggie from his grip. “Let me see what I can do.”
“I got most of the contacts off, but there are still some text messages on here I’d like to save.”
Tug. I smiled encourag
ingly. “We may be able to recover them.”
“Even if I didn’t use iCloud to back them up?”
“It depends. We’ll keep you updated every step of the way.” Tug.
“If you can save the pictures—”
One more hard tug and the baggie was finally mine. “We’ll certainly try.” I tagged the bag and put it in the intake bin for one of the techs to grab. I quickly made out an intake receipt for the squirrely customer and watched him sign it, clinging to the last remnants of my shredded patience.
When he departed, I flipped the sign to closed and turned off the front set of lights. It was only seven and we generally closed in an hour, but I was officially done for the night. On the off-chance that we had another customer, I wasn’t going to win any positive reviews on Yelp by winding up my arm and doing a Major League pitch of someone’s phone at our plate-glass window. I pawed through the intake bin until I found a relatively simple job—an iPad mini with a busted screen. There were still a few techs in the building who could handle it, but right now, I could use the distraction.
Julian and I had started our company out of his garage right out of college, more as a hobby than anything else. I didn’t think even he, with his wide-eyed enthusiasm, had imagined it would become what it was now. WinterSpark Technologies had grown into a real competitor in the technological industry, and I liked to think it was because of our humble beginnings. Just two kids fixing anything electronic for neighbors, family, and friends. Because we loved to do it.
Our business model involved undercutting those computer repair companies who’d started out as a good idea, but whose prices had risen right along with their popularity. Most of our repairs were onsite, not shipped to some unknown warehouse. More recently, we’d extended our services to include a special group of our best techs to do house calls, which was more of Zoe’s project than anyone else’s. As our Creative Director, she’d declared the team off-limits to Julian and me both.
We were very okay with that. The group of techs had demanded a name to compete with our well-known competitors and their cool VW bugs, so she’d fondly named them the Nerd Herd. They’d been ecstatic when Zoe had equipped their Scions with huge glasses which made them…a strange group, to say the least.
When I glanced through the window at the employee parking lot, all six of the Nerd Herd’s vehicles were lined up neatly in a row. They never failed to make me grin. I headed to the back of the now darkened building to my office, winding my way through the techs’ fancy glass cubicles. Julian’s idea. His renovations had cost a whole lot of money, but I had to admit the glass and hardwood floors gave it a richer, modern look. All we were missing were the invisible computer screens, and we’d be like Minority Report. Oh, and Tom Cruise, of course. We were definitely missing Tom Cruise.
I closed my office door behind me, glad I had resisted Julian’s efforts to fancy up my office. I didn’t need a glass wall right now—I needed some space between me and the real world. I didn’t need anyone watching me, asking me “how I was holding up.” I flopped into my chair and rubbed my temples.
What I needed was peace and quiet and…a distraction. I rifled through my drawer for a magnetic screwdriver and slid my loupe over my head. Most of the techs could manage the screws without a lighted loupe, but most of my techs were also twenty-five and I, was…um, not twenty-five. More like thirty-five. I also had the vision of a bat and black-framed glasses to boot.
The mundane task of opening the iPad soothed me, as usual, and I was able to take my first deep breath since I’d stumbled across the engagement album from hell. I didn’t need him. Him or his cold feet. I was smart, successful—marginally pretty—in some lighting, and fun to be around—depending on who was asked. I was going to be fine without him. And before I burned my bra at a Lilith Fair or started caterwauling “I Will Survive,” I set my Bose wireless speakers on something Katy Perry-ish and got to work.
I had just unlatched the cable for the busted LCD when a quick knock sounded at my door. Without waiting for me to speak, Julian cracked my office door a tad and stuck his head in. “I’m heading out.”
I pasted on my fake smile again. “Okay.”
“Do you need me to stay and close?”
“No.”
“Do you need me to—”
“No.”
The door opened fully and he stepped in the space. He folded his arms across his chest, narrowing hazel eyes. He had a nose like a bloodhound and an attitude to match. When he sensed something was wrong, he put that nose to the ground and didn’t stop sniffing until he’d ferreted out the problem.
He’d gone hipster sheik today, clad in a J Crew navy-blue sweater vest and white skinny jeans. His blond hair was spiked, gelled, and shellacked within an inch of its life, and a black messenger bag—it’s a manpurse, let’s be real—bumped against his hip.
I sent him a blasé look in return, hoping he wouldn’t be able to pick up on my mood. If God still loved me, He would send Julian on his merry hipster way and— Julian came in and closed the door behind him. I sighed.
Clearly, God was done with me and had forwarded Satan my application.
Julian leaned over my desk and fiddled with my phone for a minute. The music went down low, and he proceeded to settle himself in one of the chairs across from my desk as if he owned the place. Well, maybe he did…forty percent of it, anyway. And investors owned ten percent. But dammit, I owned the rest and right now, I wanted his nosy keister out of my half of that chair.
He didn’t waste any time. “I assume you saw the pictures.”
I didn’t bother to confirm what he obviously already knew. “How’d you guess?”
“Adam was my friend, too.” He sent me a gaze that was particularly sympathetic. “I saw them posted on Facebook.”
“Does anyone actually do any work around here?” I muttered, ignoring the fact that I had also been on a non-work-related website as well.
“It would probably help to talk about it.”
It would also help if I’d remembered to bring my Mace. “No thanks.”
“Then maybe I will.”
I gritted my teeth, but there was no sense in trying to stop him. Knowing Julian like I did, I knew he wasn’t going anywhere until he’d his say. Since he was my best friend and business partner, he’d earned that right. That didn’t mean I had to be happy about it.
“Adam wasn’t the right guy for you, and you know it,” he said. “Better to know that now than ten years, two kids, and a mortgage later.”
“I’m assuming your audition went well and you got the part of Captain Obvious.”
“Shut it,” he said, pointing a warning finger. Clearly, he was not deterred by any amount of sass, which was unfortunate because that was all I had. Like I said. I forgot my Mace. He went on like I hadn’t interrupted. “I’m reminding you. Just in case you saw those pictures and started thinking it should have been you. I’m here to let you know that everything happens for a reason, and he clearly wasn’t the one.”
In my frustration, I pulled too hard on the cable and it ripped in two places. I sighed. I only had myself to blame. Impatience was the hallmark of mistakes when it came to repairing things. It didn’t help that Julian was right.
I raised the loupe so that it sat back on my hair like a pair of quirky shades. “Thank you,” I finally said, begrudgingly. “I knew that but it helps to hear someone else to say it, too.”
After a moment, he nodded, apparently satisfied he’d had his say. He stood, swinging his manpurse back over his shoulder. “I didn’t get an RSVP, but I’m assuming you are coming to the party?” At my blank look, he prodded, “On Sunday?”
Crap. I’d forgotten about the party he was throwing for his brother’s birthday. He swore it was because if he didn’t make Jackson do something for his birthday, his brother would spend it working like he usually did. I suspected it was more that Julian was a party whore than he was all that worried about Jackson overworking himself.
&n
bsp; Julian’s parties usually involved everyone getting dressed to the nines and tossing back a lot of frou-frou cocktails. He also thought tiny pieces of anything fancy made great party food, and the word “appetizer” was a curse word in his world. “Amuse-bouche?” the haughty waiter had offered me at Julian’s last soiree.
My bouche had not been amused.
“I have no desire to join your vodka commercial,” I said.
“It’s not going to be that type of party. Everything is going to be laid-back and casual.”
“Yeah, right.”
“There’ll be bean dip!” He put a hand on his hip. “It can’t be fancy if there’s bean dip.”
“I don’t feel like partying right now,” I said honestly.
“You said you’d come!”
Yeah, well. That was before I was dumped before all of God’s creation and replaced with a graduate student. A cute graduate student who used a lot of heart-shaped emoticons and posted too many pictures of herself in pink workout gear after hot yoga. I mean, really. #Whogivesafuck? #Passthepringles.
“Please, Avery.” His voice was scampering up Mount Whine with alarming speed. “It won’t be the same without you there.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said dourly.
“An hour or two, tops. Then you can go.”
“Nope.”
Realizing his wheedling wasn’t doing the trick, he pulled out the big guns. He plopped his hands on his hips. “You owe me, and don’t think I’m not going to collect. I went to that stupid art fair you dragged me to last weekend.”
“You said you had a good time!” I squawked.
“No one enjoys that much abstract art, AJ. For God’s sake, most of the pieces looked like they stacked a bunch of crap in front of their yard and bulk pick up forgot to come by.” He waved his arms. “Voila! Art.”
