Hold Me Today: Put A Ring On It

by Luis, Maria

  Her whispered, “I do,” stokes the heat curling around my heart. This woman could tell me to put on a unicorn costume and dance in the middle of Copley Square and I wouldn’t think twice. Or maybe I would, but only to make sure she’s dressed as a unicorn right along with me.

  Partners-in-crime and all that.

  Lifting the notebook, I skim the edge with the pad of my thumb. “Tell me where to start.”

  And she does.

  Once I find the first entry, I angle the notebook to catch the moonlight filtering in through the window. I barely manage to read the first line before Mina’s voice diverts my attention. She speaks softly, like she’s uncertain if I’ll be willing to listen, and keeps her gaze rooted on her socked feet.

  “I didn’t know that I was any different as a kid. I’m sure my teachers told my parents that I was a late bloomer or something, but at some point, the excuses wear thin.” Those honey eyes of hers flick up to stare into the crackling flames, with a look so heartbreakingly lonely etched in her features that it nearly destroys me. Muscles flexing at my need to go, hug her, love her, I gather every shred of discipline to sit my ass still and give her room to pour her heart out. “I was six when Baba let it slip that I wasn’t his. I didn’t understand, obviously—genetics aren’t something a six-year-old really gets. I sure didn’t. Mama was crying and apologizing to him, because he was angry and yelling at me, and somehow her infidelity was my fault. I stood in the center of the living room, still wearing my school uniform, and all I remember is feeling confused.”

  The notebook’s pages crinkle in my grip.

  I wasn’t his. I wasn’t his. I wasn’t his.

  Mina’s words loop around like a broken record in my head. How did I miss it all these years? How did I not notice Yianni Pappas’s reluctance to show any hint of affection for his eldest daughter?

  Except that Mina isn’t his eldest daughter.

  Christ.

  I study her features, the notebook all but forgotten in my hands, and mentally compare her to the Pappas clan. Warm brown eyes instead of cool seafoam green like her siblings. Darker sun-kissed skin than Yianni or Katya or Dimitri. Mina is downright beautiful, but it doesn’t change the fact that—

  “You see it now, don’t you?”

  At her pointed question, I hold her gaze, unwilling to sever the connection between us. The heat from the fireplace warms my skin to a feverish temperature. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m seconds away from losing my finally wrought control. And all because—“He’s a fuckin’ bastard.” I bite out the words. Fast, sharp, completely unapologetic. “You didn’t deserve learning about your mom like that. You don’t deserve any of their bullshit at all—not for one second.”

  Her chin comes up. “But do you see it?”

  What I see is a woman who’s stolen my heart.

  Knowing that she’s waiting for an answer, I give her the bitter truth. “Naí.”

  Yes. One simple word—and she visibly curls up in a ball.

  Mina bends her knees, drawing them up to her chest. She wraps her arms around her shins, then settles her chin on her knees. She looks young, resigned, and God help me, but all I want to do is hold her.

  “Once it was out in the open, there was no pretending otherwise.” She licks her lips, but nothing about it is sexual. “Baba brought up Mama cheating all the time. He did it front of me, in front of Katya and Dimitri. He did it when we were out to dinner and she happened to look at another man a little too long. I realize now that it was classic manipulation and how he kept Mama in check. Back then, though, it felt like a thousand arrows landing in my already open wounds.”

  Squeezing her eyes shut, her shoulders draw up to her ears. “If I had been like Katya and Dimitri, maybe he would have let bygones be bygones. I was eight the first time he called me stupid. I didn’t have a good grasp in many of my classes and we both know I struggled in Greek school. Every bad grade, every failed test, was like open season for him to belittle me.”

  Fury thrums through my veins. It’s a miracle that I manage to keep my tone flat at all when I edge out, “You have dyslexia.”

  She shrugs stiffly. “I wasn’t diagnosed until I was twenty. By then I was in hair school and determined to never go back home. I’m sure the counselors in grade school may have done something to help me, but I was always home, helping my siblings with whatever they needed. My dreams took a back seat.”

  Fuck it.

  I drop the notebook to the threadbare carpet and crawl to her on my knees. Like we did when she helped me with the church spire, I assume the spot behind her. My legs spread wide, with her nestled in the V of my thighs. Fingers grazing the waistband of her leggings, I settle my hands on her hips. She shudders when I kiss that delicate spot she loves so much, right where her neck and shoulder meet. “Spill it all,” I tell her, as she reclines back in my hold and my lips slip up to her soaring-wings tattoo. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, koukla.”

  Strong woman that she is, Mina does nothing but allow her chest to expand with a deep inhale. “Your parents want you to get married because they want to see you happy. Even your yiayia has good intentions.” I feel, rather than hear, the angry hum that reverberates in her chest. “That’s not my life. One day, my parents think I should let a man take care of me. The next, they’re telling me that no one will ever want me—that I might pass on my dyslexia.”

  “So what if you do?” The words burst from my mouth like bullets discharging from a rifle. “So, what? It’s not the plague.”

  “That’s what I told my mom.”

  “Great minds think alike,” I mutter, my frustration boiling deep. “It’s ridiculous. They roped you into their own mess instead of behaving like goddamn adults.”

  Like she’s wanting to soothe me—because that’s Mina to a T, always looking out for others—she trails her fingers gently over my arm. “I may have gotten the brunt of their crap, but I’m not the only one they messed up in the head. Katya’s living in North Carolina and only comes home for the holidays. Dimitri is in Manhattan, and unless we go to him, he doesn’t step foot back in Boston. The three of us all have our own issues, and I’m so tired—so incredibly tired—of being one of my parents’ tried-and-true missiles to hurt each other.”

  No wonder she clung to Effie so tightly growing up. Our family may not have been well-off—we may not have had the newest toys for Christmas and we may not have taken a family vacation until Effie and I were well into our twenties—but there was never any doubt that we were loved.

  “Did you and your mom get into it? Is that why you left?”

  Mina gives a short nod that rustles her hair against my chin. “I had to get out of there. For as long as I can remember, your mom has always been there for me—more than mine ever has. I’m sorry if picking me up from there was uncomfortable for you.”

  It breaks my goddamn heart to hear her apologize for wanting something we should all expect from our families: comfort, love, acceptance. “Ermione, if you want to see my parents daily, I don’t give a damn.” I give her a gentle squeeze. “Not that I wouldn’t mind having you come to me instead.”

  Her answer is lost to the crackle and pop of the firewood.

  She shifts in my arms, turning around until she’s resting on her knees and her hands are closing over my shoulders. My gaze moves north from her curvy thighs to the billowy T-shirt she borrowed from me. It’s at least three sizes too large, and when she slowly lowers her hands to the hem to pull it over her head, it’s finally the perfect size because it’s gone, and all that’s left is smooth, soft skin.

  My cock hardens immediately. Perks up to full attention when Mina thumbs her nipple, rolling the peaked nub between her thumb and forefinger. Gamóto, but I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight.

  She cups the weight of her breasts, squeezing softly, plucking at her nipple once more.

  “I’m gonna need you to step aside and let me do business.” My voice emerges deep and throaty, even to my own ears
. I ignore the keening desperation for us to take it to the next level, to show her that when we fuck, we’re really making love. But if she needs this physical connection right now after cutting open all those old wounds of hers, I’m more than willing to take up the task.

  My hands glide from her hips to the small of her back, tracing up the line of her spine, until I’m palming her shoulder blades and encouraging her to thrust her chest out. She cries out the moment I graze my teeth over her hardened nipple. Her fingers sink into my hair, her nails dragging along my scalp, and the pain’s as good as the pleasure.

  I bury a grin when her lush hips push forward, seeking contact. One hand to her waist, I keep her in place as my tongue swirls over the rosy-brown nipple. Again and again, until she’s writhing even as she kneels before me. She cups my jaw with the sweetness of a lover, feverishly rakes her nails down the back of my neck when I suck, hard.

  This moment, this woman . . . There’s no one else for me.

  Now, my brain urges, tell her that you love her now.

  Pulling back, my breath wafts over her breast and Mina shivers. I love you. I cup the back of her thighs, thumbs brushing the underside of her ass. She sways forward, naked from the waist up. I love you. Because I’m a goddamn sap, I press one palm to her chest and measure the heart rate speeding along.

  It sprints like mine, tripping over itself as her breaths come shallow and quick.

  I love you.

  “I’m tired of feeling like I’m not good enough,” Mina whispers with her lids squeezed shut and her heart pounding a mile a minute under my hand. “For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m doing the right thing. Not because I’m running from my parents and trying to play rebel to their every demand, but because it’s what I want.”

  An unfamiliar edge to her tone raises the hair on arms. A sixth sense. A spidey sense, if you will, similar to the one I felt moments before I lifted Brynn’s veil and found my ex-fiancée nibbling on her bottom lip and shooting harried glances at the pews.

  Good news: I know Mina isn’t about to marry someone else.

  Bad news: the unease punching its way through my organs is not subsiding, not even a little and especially not when Mina begins to drum her fingers on the outside of her thigh.

  I lean my back against the edge of the mattress, tearing my gaze from those tapping fingers to her naked tits and then up to her stark, restless expression. The question leaves me on a rough exhalation: “Why would you be playing rebel?”

  “Because”—the tapping picks up speed—“they’ve always wanted me to find someone like you.”

  The heat dissipates just like that. “I’m gonna need more, Mina. What does someone like me entail?”

  Her gaze falls to the carpet between us and her hands come up to cover her naked breasts, and I practically feel her retreat within herself. Goddammit. Under her breath, she mutters, “Someone good.”

  My fingers clench tight into fists at my sides. “Because that’s a turn-off, having someone at your side who puts you first.”

  “Nick, it’s not that—”

  “Then tell me.”

  Her sharp intake of breath lifts her shoulders, and my gaze catches on the words I picked out for her. Without the night there are no stars. Ironic, because it feels like we’re going straight into a period of darkness.

  “You don’t understand. You can’t possibly understand when your parents have always stood by your side, no matter what.” She scrambles to yank on the T-shirt, concealing her nakedness from me like she’s closing me out from her vulnerability. It’s not without a little dose of irony that the Stamos Restoration logo falls flat over her heart. She’s wearing my shirt, and yet this is the first time since Toula’s wedding and that damn elevator that I’ve felt like we’re on two different planes, cruising in two different directions.

  Mina pulls hard on the hem of the T-shirt as her voice cracks with barely suppressed emotion. “You wanted to date Brynn? Go right ahead, they told you. You want to go on a dating show? No one stopped you, Nick. No one. My entire life I’ve dreamt and celebrated my achievements on my own because—newsflash—nothing I did appeased my parents. But I could turn it all the way around and make them proud, for once, if I did just one thing: bring home a nice Greek boy.”

  Harsh laughter pushes its way up and out of me. “We’re back to that again, huh?” I jump up to my feet, unable to just sit here. I need to move, I need to— I whirl around, anger sharpening my tone like a serrated blade as I loom over Mina. She drops her head back, unwilling to stand down, even though she’s almost a foot shorter than me.

  “So, I’m good enough to fuck but not good enough for more?” I’ve been there. I’ve stood at the altar, humiliated to my core when the woman I thought I loved turned out to love someone else. I’d rather take a punch to the gonads then go through the misery of that again. “And all because you’re trying to stick it to your parents by not giving in?”

  “I’m trying to tell you that I want you!”

  My chin jerks back from the force of her shout.

  With a hand pressed to her heart, Mina goes on, passion ripping through every word. “I want you, Nick, not because of your Greekness or how nice you are but because of how you make me feel. For once, I feel special. For once, I feel like I’m exactly where I belong. For once”—her features splinter right in front of me, and my heart shouts go to her! even as I force myself to stand completely still—“I feel as though I’m not seen as less than or the girl with the problems or Bad Girl Mina.” She swipes angrily at her eyes, thumbs stroking along the damp tears at the crests of her cheeks, and my heart takes another heavy beating. Fuck. As much as I want to comfort her and kiss away her tears, I want to hear what she has to say even more.

  “You enter a room and my body comes alive, my soul comes alive.” Her shoulders square off like she’s going into battle—against me? Or against herself. The thought comes out of left field but won’t loosen its claws. “My entire life has been one great temporary longing. Get out of my parents’ house. Open a hair salon. Be my own boss and create my own rules. And then shit hit the fan, and you threw all those temporary longings—all those dreams I’d harbored so close to my heart for so many years—straight into chaos until knowing what I want out of life isn’t so clear-cut anymore.”

  “It’s not an either-or situation,” I grind out, feeling sick to my stomach. This conversation—this anger that’s festering beneath her words—isn’t even about us. It’s about her and about the damage that existing in her parents’ orbit wreaked on her. I feel like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. For not predicting that this fallout would be inevitable.

  You can’t accept love from someone else when you don’t even love yourself, and Mina . . . God, listening to her now it’s a wonder she doesn’t hear the self-loathing in her own voice. I could bandage up her insecurities and self-doubt real nice, kiss them better, but at the end of the day, there’d be no hiding from the truth.

  And the truth is that Mina is so caught up in proving her parents wrong that she can’t even see that by loving me doesn’t mean her own dreams need to take a backseat to the relationship.

  I’m not her father. She isn’t her mother. Can’t she see that?

  Chest hurting like I’ve taken a mallet to the heart, I step back, needing space. “I’m not the kind of guy—Greek or otherwise—who swoops in and strips you of everything that makes you you, Ermione. I wouldn’t do that to a random stranger I just met, and I certainly wouldn’t do it to the woman I love.”

  Mina blanches.

  And the L-word hangs out in the open like a white, tattered flag of surrender. It hangs there, even when I don’t take it back. And it sure as hell doesn’t go anywhere while she tangles her fingers in the shirt I lent her and stumbles over her words.

  “Nick, I—” She rubs her lips together, her gaze darting every which way but to me. “I-I don’t know what to say.”

  Say that you love me.

  I sta
re at her, waiting, hoping, and then she’s staring back—and the divide between us grows.

  I let my lids fall shut and tip my head back and do nothing to mask my expression. This right here, this moment of truth, is by far the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Worse than even standing at the altar as my bride sprinted from the church with her douchebag lover clutching the train of her lace dress.

  Because what I feel for Mina eclipses anything I ever felt for Brynn or Savannah Rose or any of those blind dates I went on over the years.

  I love her and she doesn’t know what to say back.

  Are you really that surprised? I shouldn’t be. I’m the guy who does relationships and she’s the girl who prefers no-strings-attached flings. In theory, there was no other path for us but this one.

  My heart calls bullshit on that score.

  I take a single step back, arms down by my sides. “I’m gonna sleep upstairs in Dom’s room.”

  “No, please.” Mina darts in front of me, blocking my exit. Her expression is nothing short of panic—but it’s that ever-present restlessness that solidifies my decision, however much it kills me. She needs to figure her own shit out without me hovering over her shoulder. And if she can’t do that, then I . . . Well, I’ll figure it out. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that pushing her into accepting me—a nice, Greek boy—when doing so makes her feel like she’s caving to her parent’s demands, is only going to be the start of our troubles.

  We can’t move forward when she’s stuck in the tangled web of her past.

  When I move to the right, she mimics my step, her hands up and facing me as though she can stop me from leaving. “Nick, I like you so, so much. I don’t know why I can’t say the words back when I feel so damn much for you that it terrifies me.”

  “It’s not the word that matters.”

  “Then why—”