Page 5 of Hold Me Today

As in, I should have gone with the glaringly obvious choice.

Nick Stamos.

CEO/Head Honcho/He-Who-Does-Not-Smile of Stamos Restorations and Co.

Effie’s older brother.

Also, the bane of my existence . . . and my teenage crush.

But Nick was off galivanting around the world for his thirties-life-crisis, the sober part of my brain offers up, as though reminding me that,Hey, this is why you didn’t ask him in the first place.

I don’t actually knowwhyNick skipped town—for once, Effie didn’t spill the beans—but Drunk Me nevertheless shushes Sober Me, and baldly announces, “I need your brother.”

My best friend chokes on her vodka. “You hate him.”

“I’m desperate.”

“If he heard you say that, you’d never live it down.”

“I never live anything down when it comes to him,” I grumble, not even bothering to hide the exasperation lacing my tone. This is why no one should ever be judged for youthful infatuations. All those hormones brewing—it messes with the brain and causes severe lapses in judgment, like that time I convinced myself that Chris was the hottest *NSYNC member. Two decades later and I don’t even remember what Chris looks like. “I swear to God that man has a memory like an elephant. Nothing ever gets past him. It’s annoying.He’sannoying.”

“Like anelephant?” Effie’s brows lift with curiosity.

“Elephants never forget.” When she stares at me blankly, I roll my eyes and help myself to more vodka. “I saw it onJeopardy. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. Whatdoesmatter is that I have a plan.”

“A plan for my brother to overhaul this sad, empty shell of a space into something beautiful?”

I nod sharply and feel the corresponding roll of nausea crawl through my belly.Motion-sickness and I’m not even driving. The back of my skull collides with the sofa’s armrest, the sole of my foot crashing down to the floor like dead weight.

This must be what rock bottom feels like: cradled Tito’s bottle, unshaven armpits and an unwaxed upper lip, and the single prayer that the one man who I’d prefer to avoid for the rest of my life is now my only hope.

Rock bottom sucks, big time.

“He doesn’t come cheap.”

I sigh, resignation settling heavily over my chest like the set of dumbbells I purchased years ago and have never used. Cutting hair all day means my biceps and arms are perfectly lean. The same, however, cannot be said for my butt and thighs, both of which fight my jeans on the regular. J.Lo has nothing on the Pappas butt, as the women in my family like to say.

“No, Effie,” I tell my best friend, “he doesn’t come cheap.”

It’s a good thing he owes me—and I’m finally ready to collect.

3

Mina

“Holy shit, this is going to be the best damn pee of my life, I’m telling you right now.”

Tulle and lace and pearl beading fill my hands to overflow as I keep my gaze locked on the bride’s upturned face—not that I can see anything below the belt.

Effie’s cousin Toula hovers ass over toilet, her wedding dress hiked up to her shoulders, as she manhandles the metal handicap railing with one hand and clutches my forearm with the other to keep from toppling over. One wrong knee bend and she’ll be face down . . . or ass up, depending on which direction gravity pulls.

Her stiletto heel skids across the linoleum with a whine as she tries to redistribute her weight. She wobbles, eyes flicking up to meet mine in panic, and then sinks her pointy, coffin-shaped fingernails into my forearm.

“You owe me,” I tell her as her shoe connects with mine. When Toula asked that I come with her to the bathroom to check her hair before the wedding reception, there’d been no mention of “bathroom” duties.This is what happens when you play nice with everyone—you risk the possibility of being peed on. I inch my shoes back a solid two inches in self-preservation. “I don’t care if you saved me way back when after I got stuck in a bathroom stall and couldn’t get out. We’re talking—”

“Don’t Rose and Jack me, Mina,” Toula pleads with all the drama of an actress, which is, to the surprise of no one, her day job. “I’m too young to go out like this.”

The urge to roll my eyes has never been more potent. “The toilet isn’t the damn Atlantic Ocean, Tou—” A stray layer of tulle sticks to my mouth, my glossy lipstick acting like suction, and I spit out the fabric, batting it away beforeI’mthe one succumbing to Death by Wedding Dress.

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