Page 1 of Hold Me Today

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Nick

On a beach somewhere in Bali

Breaking hearts isn’t in my DNA.

Call me a pussy, a romantic, a believer in the unicorn of all emotions—true love—but I want the real deal. I crave what my parents have shared for thirty-something years; what my younger sister Effie has with her wife; what Ialmosthad six years ago before my ex-fiancée dumped me at the altar with a half-hiccupped, “I’m in love with someone else.”

Thatsomeone elseturned out to be her I-wear-pocket-protectors-like-a-douchebag boss, the bastard.

So, yeah, I’m talking about the white-picket-fence, make-love-even-when-you-haven’t-showered happily-ever-after. The kind that sinks into your bones and accelerates your heart rate and turns your hands into a clammy mess.

My hands aren’t clammy now. They’re ice cold despite the balmy weather and the fact that I’m wearing a Hawaiian T-shirt the color of puke and a pair of too-tight board shorts that hug my crotch the same incessant way my grandmother anxiously squeezes her stress-relief balls.

“Women willlovethat bulge,” the wardrobe crew assured me with a pat on the shoulder.

The women might, but there’s a good chance my ability to reproduce will die today.

“Gamóto.”

The Greek curse for “fuck” flies off my tongue, as it has since my teenage years when my Greek mother warned me and Effie against using English profanity in public. I’ve never been more grateful for speaking two languages than when I showed up on set forPut A Ring On It, a reality show that might as well be the budget-cut edition of the infamousThe Bachelorfranchise.

See: the Hawaiian T-shirt and board-shorts bit.

I shift my hips and pray for relief.

The small, velvet box burns in the front pocket of my shorts as I face down the production crew. Louder, in perfectly clear English, I grind out, “I can’t do this.”

“Buck up, Stamos,” rumbles Joe, the show’s director. He side-eyes me like I’m a caged animal clawing for escape, then casually claps me on the back like we’re best buds. I’d have to be tone-deaf to miss his hearty,fuck-youlaugh.Prick. If I wasn’t determined to leave this island uncuffed, I’d throw a fist right at his pretty-boy, Hollywood face. “It’s only pre-engagement jitters. You love her, dontcha?”

It was easy to think so in the midst of orchestrated dinner dates and cameras being shoved into my face and producers pointedly asking, “How do you feel? You love her yet?”

I haven’t answered “yes” once. And now that it’s down to me and one other contestant, the questions have narrowed down to the most vital: “How are you gonna propose?” It’s all I can do not to ditch the wannabe-surfer outfit and make a break for it, away from the white, sandy beach where Savannah Rose is waiting.

She deserves better than what I can offer: nothing but a gut-deep awareness that marrying her would be the equivalent of getting hitched to myself. I like me—hell, I even enjoy my own company most days—but there’s a reason why my mom thanked the Good Lord that I didn’t turn out to be a twin, like the doctor first predicted. Thirty-two years later, she’s still pinching my cheek and praising her lucky stars like she won the MegaBucks.

So, yeah, me and Savannah? Despite the high hopes I had coming onto the show, we turned out to be the same blend of black and white, equally balanced in temperament, opinions, and our shared preference for the introverted, hermit life.

Savannah Rose is lovely, but I just don’tloveher.

I open my mouth, ready to flay Joe alive with the reminder that, according to the contract I signed before embarking on this shit show of a journey, I can leave whenever the hell I want. Including on the last day of production, when I and the other runner-up are expected to get down on bended knee and propose.

Joe beats me to the punch. “Listen, Nick. Fact is, you gotta do it now, ’kay?” He thrusts a finger at the narrow cobblestoned pathway that leads from the cottage I’ve been sharing with my fellow contestant, Dominic DaSilva, to the beach. “Right there. She’s waiting for youright down there. You gonna disappoint her? You gonna let insecurities cloud your judgment? You said you loved her only last night!”

The hell I did.

“Joe,” I grunt, shoving one hand into my pocket to grab the engagement-ring box, “I’m not doing it. Not for you, not for TV, and definitely not for Savannah Rose. She came here lookin’ for love and I’m not going to be that asshole who lies to her for the sake of good ratings, you hear me?”

I slam the velvet box down on the entryway table to my right.

And, because the gravitational pull of the universe is a conniving son of a gun, the box skids as I let go, turning over onto its side and falling from the table.

Crashing to the floor.

Cracking wide open.

The diamond ring, which probably costs more than my restoration business is worth back in Boston, pops out from the box. It circles on the tile floor, once, twice, before teetering flat on its side. Sardonically, I lift a brow. “If that isn’t an ironic show of how this is about to go down, then I don’t know what is.”

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