Page 15 of Hold Me Today

Her fingers drum a nearly silent beat on the desk. “I wouldn’t phrase itquitelike that. It sounds so aggressive.” She smiles at me, wide and full like she’s innocence personified and not full of shit. “And I’m not an aggressive person. I’m all about the hugs and unicorns and kumbaya moments—”

“Admit it, Mina,” I murmur, barely leashing in a laugh as I struggle to maintain a straight face, “you love to mess with my head. Nothing makes you happier than seeing me thrown off balance.”

Funny how only five minutes of back-and-forth ribbing with this woman has pushed my own problems to the periphery. And that’s all before I have the satisfaction of watching her squirm in her chair. That dainty, ultra-feminine bow, black and lined with red seams, stands a direct contrast to her olive complexion. She plays with the end of one wing, rubbing the silky fabric against the pad of her thumb.

“But you make it so easy for me to . . .” She drops her hold on the bow and lifts both hands, palms facing out. “No, no, I willnotlet you distract me from the mission at hand.”

I lean forward, elbows dropping to the desk. “Which is?”

She swallows and sends a quick, searching glance up to the ceiling like the heavens will answer her prayers. If she wanted the angels doing her a solid, she should have gone to a priest. Instead, she’s here, in my office and seated on my chair.

In all the years I’ve known Mina, she’s never asked me for anything.

Independent may as well be her middle name, and my interest spikes as she drums her slender fingers and gathers her thoughts. Her mouth pulls to the side as she taps, taps, taps. “I came here planning to tell you the short and sweet version of recent events.”

Call my curiosity solidly piqued. I spread my arm wide with a flourish. “Floor’s all yours.”

A groan escapes her mouth, and the sound loops around me like a soundtrack of defeat. “I can’t.” She tugs at the bow again, and it comes a little undone. Against my will, my gaze zeroes in on the smallest hint of bare skin that she’s exposed with her fidgeting. “You’re going to think I’m a completemaláka. A naïve little idiot, and I’m telling you right now, you aren’t wrong. In my defense, I’m new at this.”

New atwhat?

“Ermione, I’ve known you since you were six. We’ve got history”—some, admittedly, that has been more than a little exaggerated by all the Greek mamas and grandmothers to something it never was in the first place—“and I’m telling you right now, there’s nothing you can say that’ll make me think you’ve got a loose screw under all that hairspray.”

“I hired a guy to renovate my hair salon and he took off with my money.”

Well, damn.

The words haven’t even left her mouth completely before I’m jumping up from my chair to grab the scotch. She looks likes she needs it—I knowI’dwelcome the burn, so I untwist the plastic cap and toss it onto the desk.

Looks like we’re both in a rough spot.

Knocking the Dunkin’s cup out of the way with my knuckles, I set the scotch down in front of Mina. “You sound stressed,” I tell her, using her own words, and she offers a pained grimace before wrapping her hand around the bottle’s neck. Rings decorate each of her fingers, some stacked one on top of the other. Theyclinkagainst the glass as she lets out a short, defeated sigh.

“Stressed doesn’t even cover it.” Her eyes flutter shut as she takes a hearty swig, then comes up spluttering, swiping her lips with the back of her hand, smearing red lipstick like a lover might and I—

My cock twitches in my pants.

Oh, hell to the fucking no.

Not Mina. Not here. And most definitely not now.

Completely oblivious to the activity happening south of my belt, she tilts her head, bottle poised inches away from her mouth. From that smeared lipstick.God help me. “Are you okay?” she asks.

I want to point at my dick and demand,do Ilookokay?Because there’s got to be a rule somewhere about getting it up for your sister’s best friend. As in,it’s not done. Since I’d rather be castrated than confess to how far I’ve fallen, I gesture at my mouth. “You got a little something right”—I brush my bottom lip with the pad of my thumb—“here.”

“Oh.” Putting the scotch down, she angles her body in the chair for a little privacy. Then goes rummaging in her purse for what looks to be a small mirror. Good, that lipstick smear has got to go. Too erotic. Too dangerous. Too damn tempting.

Clearly you’re in a dry spell iflipstickis where you cross the line nowadays.

Desperate to erase the evidence that Ermione Pappas of all people justturned me on, I yank the hem of my T-shirt out of my shorts and drag it over the growing tent in my pants. I retreat back to my side of the desk and sit down.

I’ve never—not once—allowed myself to look at Mina as anything other than my sister’s best friend. Not during my teenage years when my parents sent Effie and I along with the Pappas family to Greece when they visited Mina’s uncle, her father’s brother, each summer. My parents were unable to afford to go themselves, but for their kids, they wanted us to be as Greek as possible. That meant three days a week quarantined to a classroom with other Greek-Americans learning the mother tongue; volunteering at the localecclesia, or church, including at every festival known to mankind until we reeked ofgyrosandsouvlakifor days after; and speaking the language as fluidly as my parents and their parents did before them.

We might have been American on paper, but we were Greek in blood and heart.

I spent my summers lounging on beach chairs next to Mina. Hours of time pretending that all her little verbal jabs at my “rigid” disposition never scraped at my youthful insecurities and made me retreat.

Because if there’s one thing I’ve always known, it’s that if I’m the moon, sullen in the darkness and content in my solitude, then she’s the sun, setting fire to everything in her path. Sister’s best friend or not, a girl like Mina would regret dating a “safe” guy like me. She lives for spontaneity, adventure, and if she’d been onPut A Ring On It, she would have been the Dominic DaSilva of her season.

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