Page 18 of Hold Me Today

And I’d hoped, in the deepest, most secret parts of my soul, that moment would be the one when he realized Mina Pappas—thatI—was the girl he’d been searching for all along.

We didn’t kiss. Didn’t hold hands.

He slept atop the covers in his wedding tux. I burrowed beneath the sheets in my pajamas, pretending the warmth that surrounded me wasn’t 100% Egyptian cotton but the heavy weight of his muscular arms tugging me in close.

Hope dwindled to resigned acceptance as the little and big hands on the hotel’s grandfather clock mixed and mingled, signaling the passage of time.

When hisyiayiaburst into the room the next morning to check on her poor, heartbroken grandson, everything went straight to the shitter.

Did you hear how Mina Pappas snuck into his bed?the elderly women at church whispered the following Sunday.She’s so bad. Poor Nick, having to suffer through all that.

He’d suffered the nightmare experience of bad, naughty Mina, and I lived and breathed the afterlife of seducing good, nice guy Nick.

The damage was done, no matter what he or I said to anyone. And, boy, did Nick throw a fuss. Good, old Saint Nick, martyring himself to the fight of proving to all that I did nothing wrong. If he could have posted a bulletin that announced, WE DID NOT HAVE SEX, he would have. It wasn’t the first time (and certainly won’t be the last) that a woman felt the brunt of the fall.

I don’t blame Nick, especially knowing how much it bothered him that no one paid him any mind. I don’t blame him, no, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten the one get-out-of-jail-free card I’ve carried with me all these years.

Except here I am, desperate for his help, and I can’t even bring myself to rake him over the coals and bring up the old hurt. His hurt at being left at the altar; my hurt at realizing that my youthful fascination for my best friend’s older brother would never amount to anything more. At the end of the day, I’m nothing but big talk. Nick could backstab me tomorrow and I’d never do anything to make him feel the same pain inflicted on me.

That’s how friendships, how familyshouldbe, even if it’s a lesson not yet learned by all in the Pappas household.

I let out one long exhale that rattles in my chest.

Rock bottom, how we meet again.

Instead of answering, Nick rouses his sleeping desktop with a shake of the mouse, then adjusts the monitor so I can see the screen too. Curiosity has me literally sitting on the edge of my seat as he opens a new internet tab and taps away on the keyboard.

I wait, heart in my throat, for him to make the next move.

Or at least clue me in to whatever it is he’s thinking.

Like that’s ever going to happen.

When the page finally loads, I find my voice. “TMZ, Nick?” I try not to laugh at the thought of him scouring celebrity tabloid sites late at night before bed. “I never would have pictured you as—holycrap.”

I blink.

Then blink again.

Lift my butt clear off the chair and lean across the wide desk to grip the computer monitor and twist it so that I can get a better look.

“Oh, my God, CT wasn’t high.”

Yup, that right there is one-hundred percent Nick Stamos down on one knee. He’s dressed in the most godawful Hawaiian T-shirt I’ve ever seen, and the shorts he’s wearing aren’t much better. All he needs is a frat-boy visor on his head and he’d look like every other American tourist who used to crowd the Greek beaches in my family’s village.

I feel a swift kick ofsomethingright in the gut when I fix my attention on the woman he’s kneeling before. She’s stunning. The sort of stunning I used to see, and stare at in awe, while bingeingAmerica’s Next Top Modelepisodes.

Back when the dream hadn’t taken form quite yet.

But this girl . . . she looks as though she knows her place in the world.

I envy her that.

“CT?” says Nick in a tone that suggests it’s not the first time he’s asked.

I don’t bother elaborating. Not when there’s more important matters to discuss, like, “Are youengaged?”

“No.”

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