Page 117 of Hold Me Today

With a blush staining her cheeks, I pull her car into a parking spot. My heart goes fucking wild in my chest as Mina cracks open her door and steps outside. I follow behind her, content to let her lead. Throwing me a small smile over her shoulder, she unlocks the front door and crosses over the threshold.

After a month of renovations,Agapelooks ready for business. Beautiful slate floors, that mauve color she loved so much coating the walls, silver-embossed mirrors seated at every work station. It’s edgy and elegant and the physical manifestation of Mina’s personality.

I pause just inside, shutting the door behind me. And then I wait.

I watch as Mina tips her head back to stare up at the painted sky now spanning the length of the room. I watch as she balls a fist and presses it to her lips. She turns in a small circle, her gaze locked up above, and I try to see the mural as she does now.

Closer to the door, the ceiling is dusted with white, fluffy clouds and baby blues. Farther down, toward the back end ofAgape, the white becomes the pinks and reds and oranges of a sunset, until finally the dark, midnight blue of nighttime. Stars twinkle to life, but they don’t remain isolated in just the night portion of the mural—they’re painted throughout the entire piece, hidden within the clouds and scattered among the bright blue sky.

Without the night there are no stars.

Except that this mural proves that there are.

“When?” she whispers, her closed fist falling to her chest. “Did you . . .?”

“Paint this?” I laugh. “Nah, I wish I had this sort of talent. But I have a friend who might as well be a modern-day Picasso. I sketched out what I wanted, and he made it happen.”

“And he did this while we were in Maine?”

“Yeah.”

I hear her choked sob a second before she launches herself at my chest. Her arms loop around my back, and I don’t mistake the kiss that she gives to my ribcage, right over my new tattoo. She squeezes me, hugging me tightly. “I’m in the mood for a dance.”

My heart skips a beat. “Naí?”

“Yeah.” She glances up, tears coating her dark lashes, happiness swimming in those honey eyes of hers. “A dance like on prom night—but this one can be under the stars.”

My hands find the dip in her back, and I pull her flush against me. “I’m thinkin’ this one should end on a kiss.”

So, we dance. In the middle of her salon, in the middle of the day, underneath a painted mural of sunsets and stars that peek out through the clouds. I hold her tightly, spinning her around to the music no one else can hear. I catch our reflection in the mirrors.

My work jeans and messy, curly hair.

Her mismatched shoes and bare, beautiful face.

“Nick?”

My hands skim the curves of her body as I prop my chin on the top of her head. “Yeah,agape mou?”

She smiles up at me. “I was always yours.”

I kiss her fully, then brush her hair to the side so I can trace a pair of soaring wings. It took me a trip to the altar and one stint on a bat-shit-crazy reality show to see it, but this I know to the bottom of my heart: “I’m hopelessly, recklessly, in love with you.”

40

Mina

Two Weeks Later

“Idon’t know if I can do this.”

Beside me, my boyfriend—boyfriend!—leans forward to knock on the wooden door to my parents’ house. “You can do this. Deep breaths, remember? I know you’ve got this.”

My heart gives a swift,I’m-so-lucky-to-have-this-mankick in my chest. “You have such faith in me.”

Nick gives a low, sultry laugh. “Always,koukla. I wouldn’t let just anyone pick out ink for me, you know.”

“You mean you weren’t pleased that I strayed from the arrow pointing to your dick?”

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