Page 1 of Suddenly Dating
One
New York City
April
The first time Melissa broke up with Harry was on a Wednesday night, because Harry had come home later than he’d said he would. Okay, a lot later.Late-late. But he couldn’t help it—his crew had run into a problem installing a support beam under a bridge and it had taken a colossal effort by dozens of men to right that sinking ship.
When he walked into their little apartment, he knew he was in trouble. Melissa was sitting at the bistro table with an empty wine bottle before her and the dregs of said bottle in her glass. There was a plate of food in Harry’s spot: congealed spaghetti and something else he didn’t want to examine too closely. “I’m sorry—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she snapped with a queenly flick of her wrist. “I’m done.”
Done. What did that mean, exactly? For the evening? With him? Harry wanted to ask, but as he was a veteran of this relationship, he knew better than to seek clarification when that much wine obviously had been drunk.
Melissa’s blue eyes narrowed; she knew he didn’t know what she meant. She came to her feet. Clumsily. And swaying a little when she pushed her long dark hair back over her shoulder. She had on a very short skirt and heels that made her look hot, and, God, Harry wished he’d made it home on time.
“I’ve had it with you, Harry. You’realwayslate. You come in looking like someGame of Thrones character with your shaggy hair and your dirty clothes,” she said, gesturing wildly in his direction.
“Well... I work in bridge construction,” he said calmly. “It’s kind of a dirty job. I apologize for my hair, but you know that I wear a hard hat most of the day.”
“So you can’t get ahaircut?” she cried, and pitched forward, catching herself on the table.
This was the first he knew that his hair was an issue. He dug in his pocket for a hair band and pulled it back into a short tail.
“Oh, yeah,thatworks,” she snapped. “Here’s the thing,Harry.You do whatever you want,” she sang, casting her arm wide, “and then you expect me to sit here and wait with a dinner Islavedover.”
Here they went with the same sort of argument they’d been having a lot lately. “I don’t expect you to wait, Melissa. That’s why I told you to go ahead without me,” he reminded her. “And, to be fair, it’s spaghetti.”
Fire leapt into her blue eyes.
“Not that I don’t appreciate it,” he hastily added. Jesus, he didn’t want to do this right now. He was tired, he was hungry, and that damn support beam was going to cost him more money he didn’t have. “Come on, baby... you know what I’m trying to achieve.”
“I didn’t move in with abridge guy, I moved in with an engineer! Aproject manager,” she said, enunciating clearly, as if he didn’t recall what he’d been when they’d first met. “A guy on track to bepartner.”
“I’m still an engineer,” he pointed out. “And you could say I am the sole partner in my firm.”
“You know what I mean,” she said dramatically, and tried to dislodge herself from the tight space between the chair and the table, knocking both pieces of furniture out of place and somehow managing to twist the chair around so that she was even more pinned in than before.
“I’m probably using more of my degree now than before,” Harry said. “I can honestly say I am more of an engineer now than I was with Michaelson’s.”
“Don’t try to worm your way out of this,” she said, pointing at him with such deliberation that she almost fell over the chair. “I don’t want to be with you anymore,” she said, suddenly tearful.
And now, the waterworks. Drunk waterworks were the worst. “Come here,” he said, opening his arms wide. “Let me give you a hug.”
“I’m done, I’m done, I’m sodonewith you,” she moaned.
Wow, it was that kind of done? Harry was a little surprised. “Come on, Lissa, you’re drunk—”
“And whose fault is it that I’mdrunk?You made me drink the whole thing because you werelate.” The effort she put into the word “late” served the dual purpose of making a point and freeing her from the trap of the chair. It banged into the counter as she stumbled away from the table, teetering on her heels.
“Technically,” he said, catching her before she fell right off those stilettos, “I think you did it all on your own. Don’t cry, baby. Things will look better in the morning.”
“This isn’t what I signed up for,” she said, slapping his hand away. “You never said anything about building bridges and spendingallyour money on it and then selling theapartment.”
So that’s what was behind this. She’d known about his desire to create his own company since they’d met. But he guessed that she’d assumed he would somehow stay on at Michaelson’s in his cushy job with the great salary for the foreseeable future, even though he’d been very clear that he had goals. Big goals. “I need the cash,” Harry reminded her. “If I’m going to get this business off the ground, I need to make some investments. Do you know how much those big cranes cost? They’re not cheap.”
“Why can’t you borrow the money? Why do you have to sell our apartment?”
Sometimes, Melissa forgot that it was his apartment. She was quite successful in public relations and owned an apartment that she’d sublet once they’d decided to move in together. “We talked about this, baby.” He reached for her again.
