Accidentally All Of Me

by Parker, Ali

  I winced. If I had been a drinking man, I would have been knocking them back right about now.

  Winnie came running through to say goodbye before Raina left, and Raina gave her a big hug before she headed for the door. She might have told herself that she was no good with kids, but I could see differently. I gave her a kiss at the door, and she leaned her forehead against mine for a moment like she wasn’t quite ready to leave.

  “Feel free to gate crash anytime,” I told her.

  “Don’t tempt me,” she replied.

  For a moment, I just stood there, holding her close. I didn’t want her to go. But I eventually pulled back, certain in the knowledge that letting her walk away from me would only make it all the sweeter when she came right on back.

  Chapter 31

  Raina

  “Okay, buddy, you need to back off.” I laughed at my brother over the phone. I knew that he had to try his luck—this was Reed I was talking about, after all—but I was getting to the point where I felt like I had to lay down the law.

  “But I really want to meet this guy,” Reed protested. “Come on. It would be so good for me to actually get to know the guy you’re dating, don’t you think?”

  “And I’m sure you’d be just as interested if he was a garbage collector,” I pointed out.

  Reed had been pressing for me to bring Harry along to the family dinner that we were having that evening, and nothing that I said seemed to be throwing him off the scent. I knew it wasn’t time, not yet, and I knew with even more certainty that my brother’s reasons for wanting to meet Harry were far from pure and innocent.

  Reed liked to be in the know. That was sort of his whole thing, what with the clients he worked with and the work that he did. Every chance he got to wrap his head around the state of the upper echelons of the city was another chance he got to make sure that they knew all about the clients he was working with and, thus, more likely to kick up a fuss if something went against them. I knew where the urge came from, but I wasn’t going to put the man I was dating on the line for him, not yet.

  “This is meant to be a family dinner,” Reed protested, trying to come at it with a different approach.

  I laughed. He really did think he knew how to twist my arm, but he had forgotten that I was his big sister, and I didn’t fall for all his tricks.

  “And I have only been on about three dates with this guy,” I reminded him. “I think that’s a little premature for meeting the family, don’t you?”

  “But Lizzie and I—”

  “But Lizzie and you will just have to wait,” I told him firmly. “I’m not jumping the gun on this, Reed. I don’t want to scare him off.”

  “You think we would scare him off?” Reed replied, pretending to be offended by the very accusation.

  “I think you would for certain,” I replied. “I know how the two of you are, remember? And I don’t want him to have to sit there and take the third degree from both of you when he barely even knows me yet.”

  “Soon, though?” he pressed.

  I knew that agreeing was going to be the only way that I got him off my back. “Soon,” I agreed. “Hey, can I go? I have to put in a few orders for work, and I’ll be seeing you later today anyway.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he replied. “You sure you don’t want me to get an extra place set for Harry?”

  “I’m sure,” I told him firmly. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

  “See you later.”

  And with that, I hung up the phone and turned back to the order forms that I had been filling out. I loved my brother, but sometimes, he could just be so much to take in. And I had no doubt that Lizzie had been hanging over his shoulder the entire time, trying to get him to invite Harry along.

  Reed was the one who wanted this to work. I doubted he would have been rushing into meeting him of his own accord. Lizzie, though, was probably curious to know what someone like him saw in someone like me.

  Ugh. I was projecting again. I had been second-guessing everything that was happening between us, and it was making me feel like I was losing my fucking mind.

  How did people just... date? I felt like I had forgotten how. It seemed like some long-lost distant art to me, something I would have to learn from scratch and hope that I didn’t fuck up along the way.

  Everything was going so well, and that just made the stakes even higher. I felt like I could have used a test-run relationship, one that I could fuck up along the way so that I could learn what I was doing with myself.

  But no. I had to find the perfect guy right off the bat, and I had to find a way to make it work with him, even though it often felt like I was scrambling in the dark to put those pieces together.

  I knew that throwing in a family dinner was only going to make things more complicated. I hated that I was already so nervous about all of this, but I was. How could I not be? It felt like I was scrambling in the dark to fit all these pieces together, and I was constantly worried I was going to drop the ball and mess up in some way that he wasn’t willing to move past.

  It wasn’t like he had just himself to worry about, either. No, he had his niece, and I didn’t want to do anything to get in the way of that if I could avoid it. She had already been through so damn much already. It wouldn’t have been fair to do anything else that might have stung her.

  I supposed, though, that I had already met his family. I already knew them pretty well, all things considered. Maybe he was expecting the same thing from me? I doubted it. We had hardly planned it out so that I would already know Winnie as well as I did. It had sort of happened by chance.

  I didn’t know what to make of what happened next, but the least I could do was tap into my own levels of comfort, and I knew that they weren’t at the stage where I wanted to haul Harry out in front of Lizzie and Reed anytime soon.

  When I was finished up at work, I went to clean up and then headed over there for dinner. Even though I would have liked nothing more than to curl up on the couch with some takeout, I knew that getting out of the house was more important.

  Reed was family, and Lizzie was sure going to be soon enough, and the least I could do was make sure that they stayed a big part of my life. Even if I knew that they were going to be spending most of the time that I was there picking my brains about Harry and trying to squeeze out every last detail of what had been happening between us.

  “So good to see you!” Lizzie exclaimed as soon as she opened the door and saw me standing there. She leaned over the threshold and gave me a huge hug, and I couldn’t help but smile. She might have been way too effusive for me, but she had a good heart, and her warmth was as real as they came.

  “Good to see you too,” I agreed, and I headed into their lavish apartment and toward the dining table, which was already steaming with food.

  Where I might have opted for takeout, they had a chef who came around to prepare most of their meals for them, and I knew that this was going to be delicious.

  Reed was happy to see me and actually let the issue of seeing Harry drop once I got there. I was glad because I was going to have to go old school and smack it out of him otherwise.

  We sat around the table and chatted, and I carefully deflected all their curious little questions about what was going on with Harry and me. I had no interest in delving any deeper than I already had with them. Any hint of information would be enough to send their sensors spinning wildly out of control, and that was the last thing I wanted.

  Which meant that I kept my mouth firmly shut about the gala that was coming up. If I even hinted to either of them that he was going to be bringing me to something like that, I knew they would be planning the wedding the first chance they got. They were ridiculous that way. I knew that it had been a while since I had dated anyone, but the conclusions that they would jump to were just too much for me.

  “So, tell us about how things are going with Harry,” Lizzie asked finally, casually, as though the thought had just crossed her mind and she hadn’t been try
ing to sidle up to that question for the whole evening. I could see that she was holding back a smirk of amusement, and she and Reed exchanged a look.

  “It’s all going just fine,” I replied. “Nothing to report. Just still seeing each other.”

  “I think the two of you make such a perfect couple,” Lizzie blurted out, and Reed took her hand and squeezed it, likely telling her that I wasn’t going to react so well to what she was saying.

  “Yeah, well, I try not to give it much thought,” I replied firmly. “We only just started seeing each other, after all. No need to get ahead of ourselves now, is there?”

  “Hmm,” Lizzie replied, and she pulled a face that was clearly meant to indicate that she thought there was very much a good reason to get ahead of ourselves actually, but she let the subject drop, which was all that I cared about.

  I spent most of the evening talking about work, asking about the cases that they had been dedicated to recently, and it flew by. They were both so passionate, it wasn’t hard to get them talking if I wanted to pull the attention from myself for a while.

  When we were done, Lizzie went to clear up the dishes as Reed walked me over to the door.

  “Thanks for coming around today,” he told me. “We’ve been thinking about you. We don’t want to lose touch, now that you’re running off with Harry Porter.”

  “I’m not running off with anyone,” I replied, but I couldn’t help but smile. The thought of running off with him was appealing in its own way, even though I knew that I was way too early into the game to think about anything like that.

  “Well, even still, I think it’s only fair that you let me meet him,” he told me. “I’m the brother, after all. I’m meant to have the final say on whether or not I think he’s good enough for you.”

  “And I’m the big sister, so I think that you don’t get to make demands,” I teased him right back. “I’ll introduce you guys when I’m ready.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting him,” Reed replied, and I could see from the flash in his eyes that he wasn’t that bothered about waiting much longer. Knowing my brother, he would take matters into his own hands if I didn’t do something about it soon.

  I winced at the thought. Yeah, that would be a straight-up nightmare. I would have to make sure that I got in ahead of him before he did something like that, turning up at Harry’s work to track him down or something. I’d have to kill him if he tried to pull something like that.

  “I’ll make sure it’s soon,” I promised him, and he gave me a hug before I headed out the door to make my way back to my apartment alone.

  It made me happy that the man I was dating was already such a hit amongst my family, although I would have been lying if I said that the pressure wasn’t on to make sure that I kept up my end of the deal.

  I wanted to impress him. And I knew that, to do that, I was going to have to pull off this gala, one way or another, without making a total fool of myself in the process.

  Chapter 32

  Harry

  I flopped down into the seat at my desk and looked over the ridiculously comprehensive range of ideas that all my employees had delivered to me since I had first brought up donating to the charity. The wad of paper that held all their plans was about an inch thick, and I was going to have a lot to get through for sure.

  But that was good. Because it meant that I had hit on something that they were all passionate about. It was so much easier to get people motivated when you were dealing with something that they actually wanted to get involved with, and I knew that the dog shelter had been the perfect choice in that regard.

  I had polled them all for ideas, and they had replied with so much that I hardly knew where to start—volunteering, expanding, helping with day-to-day admin work. In fact, people seemed to be tripping over themselves to help out, probably because this was the only charity they would get to work with through the company that allowed them to hang out with dogs all day long.

  Which reminded me. I reached under the table and patted Tink on the head, and he lifted his nose and sniffed it against my fingers. I had to give the actual shelter a call and check that I was all right to go ahead and announce them as the charity I wanted to donate my takings from the gala to. I had no doubt that they would accept it, but I figured the least I could do was actually check in first.

  I dialed the number for the shelter, and it rang for a long time before someone picked up. Marjorie was on the other end of the line, the woman I had helped out when I had been volunteering there. She sounded harassed and distracted. God knew how long she had been working there today. She had to bend over backward to keep everything running there. I had so much respect for her. And I was hoping that I would be able to take some of the weight off her with the donations from the charity.

  “Hey,” she answered, sounding a little out of breath. “Is this about the rent? Because I have the money. I just need till the end of the month—”

  “This isn’t about the rent,” I told her. “Marjorie, this is Harry Porter. I came to volunteer for you recently, you remember?”

  “I remember,” she agreed. “Is everything all right with Tink? You don’t want to give him back, do you?”

  “Not at all,” I promised her. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m naming your shelter as a beneficiary in a charity gala that’s coming up soon.”

  She fell silent for a moment. I thought the line might have dropped.

  “Marjorie?”

  “Hello, yes, I’m still here,” she replied quickly. “I just... I’m sorry, did I hear you right? You want to name us as what?”

  I explained the situation to her as quickly and as clearly as I could. I was worried that she might think it was too much, but she stayed silent and listened to everything that I had to say. As soon as I was done, she let out this long breath, as though this were the last thing that she had been expecting.

  “Are you really sure about that?” she asked quietly.

  “Certain,” I replied.

  “Why would you want to give all that to us?” she asked curiously.

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to come out and say that it was because of Raina, even though I knew that was the truth.

  “Tink has changed our lives,” I told her. “I want to make it so that other people can feel that as well. Only way we can do that is if we make sure that the shelter stays open, right?”

  “I guess so,” she agreed, and she took a deep, shaky breath. She sounded like she was going to start crying right then and there. I wasn’t much equipped for dealing with that level of emotion, but to my great relief, she held back.

  “Thank you, Harry,” she told me. “You have no idea how much this is going to help with everything around here.”

  “Not at all,” I replied. “Thank you for making my niece’s life so much better.”

  With that, we said our farewells, and I started leafing through all the ideas in front of me. People were already dedicated to this notion, but I was going to need a little more help to sort the good stuff from the bad. And I knew just the person I could hit up to make that happen.

  I dialed up George, and he answered via video call a few moments later.

  “Morning, son!” he greeted me cheerfully. I knew that he was always pleased to hear from me when I was at work, though he would have been quick to deny it. He liked to pretend that he was totally done with that part of his life, but we both knew that it was nonsense. When you were that committed to your work, you couldn’t just switch that off, no matter how far you might have gotten from it.

  “Morning,” I replied. “I could use a little help, if you don’t mind me picking your brain?”

  “Well, somebody’s got to these days,” he replied. “What do you need help with?”

  “I have this gala coming up, and I’ve picked a charity to donate to,” I explained. “The shelter that we got Tink from.”

  “Good idea,” he agreed. “Pet stuff always looks good. There’s nobody out there wh
o’s going to get mad at the thought of a big chunk of cash going toward some needy dogs.”

  “And I really like the shelter,” I replied. “I think they do a lot of great work, but they’re really struggling to make ends meet, and—”

  “Good to hear you so committed to something like that,” he said. “Can’t remember the last time you were so passionate about something that wasn’t work-related.”

  I knew that he was hinting in the direction of Raina, but I wasn’t going to let him do anything more than hint because the last thing I needed was someone else sticking their nose into that and trying to figure out what they thought of the whole deal. I knew that I liked her, knew that I wanted to support her and the shelter no matter what, but I would need a hot second to get used to the thought of dating someone new before anyone else came in to start spreading their judgments all around.

  We talked about how best to support the shelter. He brought up the reports from the previous galas to see how much money we could be thinking about taking in and how we could divide it up. I wanted to see if we could stretch some of it around to other shelters in the state.

  If Marjorie was struggling so much, then I was certain that the same struggle was taking place at shelters all over the state, maybe all over the country. It was strange. Just a few weeks ago, I doubted that I would have given much thought to what was happening with the stray dogs of this country, but now, they were all that I could think about.

  That was the difference of having someone like Raina in my life, I supposed. She made everything feel more important and more urgent. Her passion for what she did and her dedication were enough to light that same spark in me.

  That was what had drawn me in more than anything, her passion. I felt like I had been living out a lot of my life in black and white before she had come into it, but now that she was here with me, I could finally see in full color again.