Page 9 of Hold Me Today

I’ve worn the victor’s hat more often than not. Mina’s unpredictable, reckless, even, but she shows her cards before she plays them. Those amber-rimmed eyes of hers hold no secrets. At least, they never did when we were younger.

And I can’t deny that I’ve always enjoyed watching her scramble for things to say that might, finally, shock me.

Settling in, I cock my head and steadily meet her gaze.Round one, here we go. “What’re my chances that myyiayiais gonna take one look at you tonight and declare you as the next bride-to-be?”

She visibly stumbles on nothing but air, her hand going to the metal balustrade that lines the walls of the elevator. “She’s out of luck.” Mina’s voice comes out raspy, like she’s swallowed a bundle of surprised nerves. “I’m already taken.”

I might as well be ass-over-head, landing right into a pile of sawdust at a jobsite. Disbelief suctions my feet to the ground like magnets to a refrigerator.No way. Hell wouldactuallyfreeze over if Mina did anything more than casually see a guy.

Like I said, she’s been on my periphery since forever. I spent most of my junior and senior years of high school watching out for her, at my sister’s urging. “She gets bullied a lot, Nick. Just make sure everything is gravy, would you?”

Even if things aren’t gravy, Mina never lets down her walls.

Except that one time on the night of her prom—which, even then, lasted no more than the seconds required to shore up my reserve and step away from the danger zone. Crossingthatforbidden boundary with my sister’s best friend just isn’t gonna happen.

I squint down at her and try to read her expression. For once, her honey eyes tell me nothing, leaving me to stand out in the cold. Well, damn. Is she . . .bluffingme? “Effie didn’t mention you were seeing anyone.”

Mina’s vampy, dark-painted lips twitch into a dreamy smile as she sways back and links her arms over her chest. “He’s amazing. So giving.”

I cock a brow and opt to wait out whatever ace she thinks she’s got up her sleeve.

I’ll give her that. Mina’s always been particularly good at planting the seed and letting the tangled web she weaves give her the upper hand.Trouble,my grandmother always said,That one is trouble. Most of the Greek community here in Boston agrees, for one reason or another. It’s not an opinion that I share. She may be reckless, but Mina is also one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met.

Not that I’d give her any ammunition by telling her that.

“Austere, really,” she goes on, her tone light as a feather and with her eyes still fluttered shut. Her makeup today is smoky, bronze highlighted with gold, and it’s in that moment when I realize her crazy pink hair is long gone. Strands as black as a cloudy night sky curl over her collarbones, the tips brushing the upper swells of her breasts.

I jerk my gaze up, just in time to hear her add, “He’s so cold, but sometimes, in the early mornings when the light filters in through the windows, I can tell he’ll be something a little more one day. Not just a money-hogging jerk that’s like a noose around my neck.”

Like a noose around—

Game over.

My lips compress into a flat line. “Ermione”—her name rips from my chest in warning—“if he so much as touches you, I’ll—”

Her honey eyes pop open, and the flare of humor that I see there has my chest deflating with relief. The relief is short-lived. She’s busting my balls. Again.Round two goes to you—bravo.

“You’ll what?” she pushes, as the elevator dings our arrival on the fifth floor. The doors crack open, but before I can even think to escape, Mina hops around me and smacks one of the buttons.

The elevator hiccups, doors jerking back shut, and the pressure beneath my feet increases as we ascend to the next floor.

“Ermione.”

With her back to the row of buttons, she kicks one foot up on the wall behind her, the heel of her shoe clinking as it meets metal. “Oops.” Her mouth purses as her brows go hairline high. “Wrong button.”

I’m going to kill her.

I haven’t even been back in Massachusetts for more than two weeks and already I’m going to find myself trading in my work boots for an orange jumpsuit and a cell mate named Bend Over.

My voice sounds like gravel-infused-with-nails when I finally find the words past the sudden frustration swirling in my brain. The idea of her dating a man who might put his hands on her—Jesus. I scrub a hand over my jaw, then shoot her a pointed glare. “No more games.”

“Not a game,” she replies, all honeyed, cajoling tone, “I need to talk with you . . . in private.” She gestures toward the elevator like she’s found us the perfect location for a little rendezvous.

The last time we “talked” we ended up sharing a hotel bed for the night, drunk off our asses, while my grandmother busted in the door and promptly told the entire family that Ermione Pappas had seduced me.

There’d been no seduction of any kind.

Only too much booze, hours’ worth ofI Love Lucyre-runs, and—on my part—a reluctance to face the music: that I was dumped at the altar. I slept in my tux, fully clothed, with my bow tie still locked around my throat like a noose.

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