Hold Me Today

by Maria Luis

  “Nick?”

  His full lips part and the words that spill out rock me to my core. “I know that you used to get bullied in high school because you collected Barbies. Some asshole saw you at Toys “R” Us when he was there with his little sister.”

  I blink, more than a little surprised by the admission. Even if the admission is true. Swallowing down my nerves, I find the need to defend myself a little, to make my younger self not seem quite so pathetic. “It wasn’t like . . . I mean, it’s not like I played with—”

  Nick shakes his head, cutting off my tangent. “You practiced cutting hair on them. I remember, Ermione.”

  Between my difficulties in class and being that “weirdo with the Barbie fetish,” high school was rough. Teenagers were assholes, and sometimes, when you were different—a little more unique, I liked to think—than your peers, your differences became an opportunity to be targeted. My learning disability, my Greek “otherness,” my weirdness, all made me a prime target for getting shit on. Back then, I never had the self-esteem to hold my ground.

  “I remember when he came in to school one day with a black eye and a busted lip.” The memory pulls a soft, caustic laugh from me. “I wanted to feel bad, you know? I’m against violence, no matter if someone deserves it. Maybe the bully is being bullied at home—or maybe that’s my brain making excuses for their inexcusable behavior. But after months of putting up with his asshole comments, I straight up walked around on cloud nine for days after seeing him like that.”

  “Weeks.”

  “What?”

  Nick shifts his weight on his feet. “You walked around for weeks lookin’ like you’d been hand-delivered a unicorn. And,” he says, looking down the aristocratic slope of his nose at me, “I’d never felt so pleased with myself.”

  Pleased with—?

  Oh. My. God.

  “You didn’t,” I burst out, shock turning my heart rate into a rapid tattoo of disbelief. “Did you?”

  Lips curling in a satisfied grin, he gives an ambivalent shrug. “How would you put it?” He pins me with a direct, daring look that I feel all the way down to my toes. “Oh, yeah . . . that Saint Nick doesn’t gossip. Sounds about exactly what you’d say to me, nickname and all.”

  “If the shoe fits . . .”

  His chin tucks in to his chest as he taps his work boot alongside my foot. “One of these days you’ll see that being a good guy doesn’t mean I can’t be a little bad.”

  “Do you want to be bad?”

  Another tap of his shoe against mine, and then, “Óxi, Mina mou.”

  No, my Mina. My heart gives a little jolt at the teasing glint in his voice—and the Greek endearment that rarely anyone but my mother uses for me. It’s not a possessive show of affection, as it sounds in English, but more of a . . . diminutive way to refer to someone. Koukla mou, my mom always calls me and Katya, my doll. I try not to imagine Nick whispering the words in my ear, his big body hovering above mine as those pillow-soft lips graze my neck and up to that sensitive place behind my ear.

  You do not like him anymore.

  I haven’t in years. But that doesn’t stop me from inhaling a little too often now that he’s standing close, taking in that money-in-the-waiting scent of his that smells less like cologne and more just like him.

  “Why be bad when being good is so rewarding?” he asks, and before I can digest that particular statement, he’s stepping back and crouching down to pick up the Walgreens bag. Letting the plastic strap dangle from one finger, he ducks a hand inside, then pauses, as though thinking better of it.

  “C’mere.”

  Nick has solidly knocked me off my axis this morning and I’m floundering, unable to move. “Why?”

  He crooks a finger at me, then repeats, in Greek, “Éla edó.”

  I go to him.

  Wait with my heart in my throat as he peels the bag open wide and gestures for me to glance inside. Heart beating wildly against my ribcage, I do as he says—only to find the infamous yellow Domino’s bag staring back at me.

  Sugar.

  The man brought me actual sugar.

  My shoulder blades hit the wall as I tip my head back and laugh harder than I have in a good long while. It filters out of me, unweighted by the stress of life and Agape and my dwindling bank account, and echoes off the walls. Then deep, masculine laughter joins in, too. I can’t believe he went out of his way to go to the store and pick it up, all for the purpose of proving what? That he can give a girl a little bit of sweetness? That he’s not all rough edges and surly attitude?

  I peer up at Nick, only to find him posted opposite me in the same position. But instead of cupping his hands over his mouth to stem off the laughter like I am, he’s all smooth, male confidence with one hand buried in the pocket of his Blades sweatshirt and one boot planted on the wall behind him. He looks like he’s got all the time in the world to stand there and change my perception of him.

  “Funny thing,” he says when he catches me studying him, “Saint Nick’s got a weakness.” He lifts the Walgreens bag and gives it a little shake. “Nice or not, good or bad, there’s nothing I hate more than when people look at me and cast their judgments. It’s one of the reasons this whole thing with the media and Put A Ring On It thing is driving me up a wall.”

  My fingers tap the wall at my sides. “Why?”

  “What do you mean why?”

  I kick my chin in his direction. “You went on the show, right? Anyone who’s ever watched reality TV has to know that their character is about to be torn to shreds. Not even the good can survive.”

  He lets out a rough chuckle at my subtle sarcasm. “It’s the sort of thing you don’t notice much when you’re out there. You’re stuck in a house with twenty other guys, all vying for the hand of the same girl. The producers ask the same questions of everyone. Do you love her? How’s the chemistry? Are you mad you didn’t get chosen for today’s date? They’re there to do their job, and we were there to fall in love and wait, gavel at the ready, for our dreams to be crushed and decimated.” Cocking his head to the side, as though giving my question deep consideration, he adds, “The judgment comes later, when it’s all said and done and you’re back home. When you check your email and scroll across multiple sites all having something to say about you. You become a one-note sensation, pre-determined by heavily edited scenes and your ability to stay true to yourself when you’re thrown to the lions.”

  I swallow, hard, unable to tear my gaze away from his face. We’ve never talked about anything more important than pass the tzatziki sauce or stop stealing my towel! Even on his wedding night, conversation took a backseat to the numbing comfort of I Love Lucy and booze and room service. But, in this moment, I could stay here forever, listening to him philosophically analyze dating TV shows and the effect they have on the contestants’ vision of self-identity. I wonder if seeing yourself in the headlines, on screen, changes the way you perceive yourself—or if it all just becomes white noise.

  The idea captivates me, swirls around in my head, and demands to be explored further, but I push it aside for now and ask the one question that won’t leave me alone: “What do they say about you?”

  His Adam’s apple bobs down. His gray eyes shift to the right, staring at the wall above my shoulder, before swinging back. Meeting my own, unapologetically direct. “That even a pretty face like mine can’t convince a woman to stick by my side. Left once at the altar, and then during a proposal.” His voice lowers to gravel, a sound so sexy and alluring that I could orgasm on the spot and die happy. “It makes me want to prove them wrong.”

  Even sexier than his voice is his confidence. “Yeah?”

  He gives a curt nod. “Naí.” Yes.

  Words fly to my tongue and stay in silence. Like an idiot, I repeat, “Yeah,” because clearly that’s a valid addition to our conversation right about now. Very riveting commentary. Honestly, how I don’t win any conversational awards is beyond me.

  Instead of walking away wi
th the unofficial Most Likely to Flunk Out of College award, my fellow high school peers did me an injustice. Obviously, I should have won Most Likely to Stand Silent When Faced With a Sexy Man Who Also Happens to Be My Best Friend’s Brother.

  Go me.

  “You didn’t ask me if I knew anything else about you.”

  Honestly, I’m not sure I can handle anymore revelations today. Not when he seems to have an arsenal at the ready to make me question everything I know about him. “Was I supposed to?”

  He doesn’t look away. “I think you should.”

  Heart beating rapidly, I tap the outside of my thighs. “All right.” Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap. “If we’re not friends, prove it and forever hold your peace. Unless there’s something else you know about me.”

  Pushing off the wall, he slips past me but turns once he’s another foot or two away. Walking backward, toward the main room of Agape, he flashes me a small, get-ready-for-it grin that lights me aflame. “I know that you liked me for years, Ermione. That, on the night of your prom, I crushed you when you realized I wasn’t going to kiss you. It made me sick, thinking that, when all I wanted to do was to make you feel better, that I’d somehow made you feel worse instead.”

  Ringing.

  A loud, ear-piercing ring is all I hear as his words sink in and the floor beneath my feet fails to heed my wishes and do me a solid.

  By opening up and swallowing me whole.

  “Nick,” I whisper because, oh my God, I need to say something. Holy shit. Holy shit, I’m panicking. Straight up, freaking out as I stare at my best friend’s older brother who apparently has known for years that I spent the majority of our youth wanting him the same way all the girls in my school wanted Nick from the Backstreet Boys. I’d wanted a different Nick, one less famous, and yet it might as well have been the same thing: neither me nor any of my classmates were going to get the Nick we wanted.

  I swipe my tongue over my suddenly dry lips. I feel parched. On the verge of dehydration and a new illness called fuck-me-sideways-this-can’t-be-happening-itis. The cure: currently unknown. “Nick—”

  He watches me steadily, and there it is—the challenge in his gaze . . . proving me wrong. That I don’t know him at all and have maybe never really known him.

  “Tell me something,” he says, turning on his heel as he moves toward the main room. He casts a quick glance over his shoulder, and I can’t read him again. Embarrassment slinks into my veins and turns my limbs to liquid ice. “Tell me all about your dream salon and don’t leave a damn thing out. I’m gonna bring it to life for you, just you wait and see.”

  The last thing I actually see before he turns the corner is his amazing ass in those dark jeans he’s wearing.

  This was supposed to be an exchange of services: he pulls a Chip and Joanna Gaines and rehabs my salon and I fake-date him until the paparazzi learn that Nick is the most boring lead who’ll ever exist.

  Except . . .

  Nick apparently beat up the bully who made my life hell in high school.

  And he knew how I felt about him on prom night when he danced with me in his arms, and I learned that even though I was finally eighteen and totally fair game, he’d fallen for someone else.

  The woman who dumped him at the altar six years later.

  10

  Mina

  “Welcome to our final stop of the night, Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, where the tombstones are riddled with bullet holes and full-body apparitions are often spotted under the starry night sky.”

  Almost in unison, every member in the tour group holds up their cell phones and cameras and trains them on Effie, who’s perched next to a tombstone and decked out in full eighteenth-century garb.

  It’s been a few months since I last joined my best friend on one of her tours, and since I’ve heard this particular ghost story at least as many times as I’ve watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I linger at the back of the group and keep my hands stuffed deep in the pockets of my wool coat.

  The bite of the February wind cuts through my thick, fleece-lined leggings and I burrow deep in my scarf. It’s cold, my nipples feel like frozen raisins in my bra, and I’ve spent the last two miles wondering why I opted for a dress tonight instead of jeans. Fashion over comfort was not the right decision, my friends.

  I may have begged Effie for a girl’s night—all the better to corner her and ask when the hell she told Nick how I’d crushed on him for years—but with the touring season slowing down for the next few months, I wasn’t about to miss tonight for anything.

  When you’re best friends with someone, their successes become your successes and I make sure to hop on Effie’s tours as often as possible. Tonight, she’s got a few of the Boston Blades, and their significant others, along for a spooky walk through the city. It’s a huge step for her career, and when she blurted out the news over the phone earlier today, excitement dogging every word, I knew my night would be spent tromping around graveyards and narrow, gaslit streets.

  “And the bullets?” one of the hockey players calls out, his arm wrapped around a willowy redhead. “That’s a real story?”

  Effie tugs her shawl tighter around her shoulders, then lifts her lantern—all the better to cast a creepy shadow across her face. Her stained red lips part, and then she’s giving the crowd her “tour guide” voice, deepening it to a raspy husk and stepping forward so that they’re forced to clear a small circle for her.

  “Legend has it that the British used this cemetery for target practice during the Revolutionary War. They ducked behind those gravestones you’re standing next to”—she mimics the words themselves, her dress billowing out as she crouches, lantern still held at chin-level—“and prepared for the Battle of Bunker Hill. Boston was anti-loyalist at its heart, and the broken relationship between the colonialists and the Tories is still responsible, centuries later, for the ghost sightings spotted here.”

  One of the players—a huge, hulking guy with dark hair—creeps backward, feet silent on the grass and soil. He catches me watching, lifts a finger to his mouth to keep me quiet, and tiptoes in the way only a six-foot-plus giant can: like the Hulk prowling through the night.

  “Orbs are the most common paranormal phenomena seen here, but a word for the wise,” Effie says, “if you’re taking photos, I suggest taking more than one consecutively. If something stays in one spot, it’s likely just dust or—”

  “Boom!”

  The Hulk-slash-Blades player claps one of his teammates on the back, an arm circling his neck.

  “Beaumont!” the unsuspecting dark-haired guy barks out. “You fucking asshole, man.”

  Beaumont releases him with a there-there pat that has everyone else laughing. “Aw, Cap,” he says, “don’t tell me you pissed yourself.”

  “Cap” turns to the blonde woman next to him. “I’m going to kill him,” he says with an air of finality.

  The blonde laughs and squeezes Cap’s bicep. “Good news,” she tells him, “if you’re going to do it, now’s the time. So many graves—what’s one more?” She leans in and mock-whispers, “No one will ever have to know.”

  Cap releases a husky chuckle, and then calls out to Effie. “Sorry my teammates are buffoons. I try not to let them loose more than once a month.”

  My best friend grins. “Might I suggest a collar to wrangle them in?”

  That has everyone rolling, and by the time she’s wrapping up the tour fifteen minutes later, Jackson “Cap” Carter has promised Effie five rink-side tickets and a glowing five-star review online.

  “Sarah’s going to be beside herself,” I murmur after the Blades and their other halves have descended the narrow, stone steps that lead down to the street from the elevated graveyard. “Free hockey tickets? The gods are shining down on us.”

  In the lantern’s dim light, I catch Effie’s eye roll before she flicks off the lamp and Copp’s Hill is eclipsed by only the ambient light of the city. “I’m not even going to pretend that I’d win out over hockey.” S
he raises one hand, palm flat and facing the sky, and tips the scale as she lifts the lantern a notch higher. “Me or hockey?” Her hands seesaw, up and down. “Me or hockey? Let’s not fool ourselves here. Hockey wins every time.”

  “Those players did have very nice behinds.” At Effie’s deadpan stare, I shrug. “What? We can both appreciate a fine ass, no matter the gender. Like yours? Perfection. Feel free to give me some of the tightness factor, would you? I’m already developing the Pappas cellulite and I swear I’m too young for it.”

  My best friend nudges me forward with a hand to my shoulder. “Your ass is fine, Mina.”

  “It’s big.”

  “Guys like big.”

  “Who cares about what guys like?” I tease, the soles of my ankle boots echoing over the stone steps. “My jeans are currently at my apartment and staging a revolt the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Revolutionary War. I’m scared the seams are on the verge of losing.”

  “On that note, how do you feel about Italian?”

  I laugh lightly. Copp’s Hill sits on the periphery of the North End, which is famous for its Italian heritage, its Italian restaurants, and the number of Italian flags spray-painted on the streets. Our dinner options quite literally consist of Italian pizza, Italian pasta, and Italian dessert—all of which will terrify my jeans even more. Thank God for skirts, though, and leggings.

  “I’m in,” I say, putting up a hand for a high-five.

  Together, we buckle down against the nippy breeze whipping off the harbor just blocks away. At this time of night, the neighborhood is quiet as we meander toward the popular Hanover Street. Effie’s wide hoop skirt bumps into me every other step, and I end up walking on the street while she takes up the width of the beyond-narrow sidewalk.

  “Did Sarah want to come out for dinner?” Loosely, I wrap my hand around my hair to keep the strands from whipping me in the face. “Or is she still buckling down for that deadline?”

  Effie lets out a little sigh. “I know she’s stressed when I have to remind her to shower. Her boss is just such a jerk. You’d think they were working on a miracle life-saving drug the way they’re all camped out at the office at all times of night.”