Hold Me Today: Put A Ring On It

by Luis, Maria

  Vince steps up next to me. Like he’s a mother checking for a fever, he plants the back of his hand against my forehead. When I move to bat it away, he jumps out of reach. “No temperature. If you’re telling someone to pick a lock, it could be the end of the world as we know it.”

  “Is it wrong that I’m hoping for the zombie apocalypse?” Bill asks as he steps to the side to let Mark past him. “Like, there’s something about The Walking Dead that’s always called to me.”

  I glance over at him. “You got a fetish about becoming someone else’s snack?”

  His cheeks turn crimson. “Hey, if it was a zombie woman eating me—”

  Vince claps him hard on the back. “There’s help out there for people like you, Billy. 1-800-Got-Fetish. Press four on the menu and wait for the zombie specialists to come on. Rick’s here to tell you to figure your life out before you end up like him, old as fuck and crying on every single episode.”

  Laughter reverberates in my chest, just as Mark pipes up, “Rick’s a pansy. Everyone knows it. Also, we’re in.”

  “We’re in” sounds way too close to an actual B&E, so I shuffle the guys inside and break down today’s objective. Tearing down the walls leading to the two backrooms is a hassle and a half, but the rooms are weirdly angled and useless as they are now. I’m envisioning an open floor plan, something expansive and elegant that captures a visitor’s attention immediately upon entering the salon. A middle-sized backroom with sinks for the shampoo bowls will lead, through a set of antique parlor doors I’ve got in my warehouse, to a room that can be used for anything else Mina wants to incorporate into the salon’s lineup. None of it, though, matches the plans I have for the main room’s ceiling. A friend of a friend owes me a favor for the job I did on his house, and I didn’t hesitate to call it in.

  Annoyed as I am about her missing this morning’s meet-up, I can’t turn off the creator in me. I want to be the one to give Mina the salon she’s always dreamed of.

  I also want to know why in the world she hasn’t come down to meet us.

  “You guys got this, right?” I ask Vince once we’ve lugged in our tools from the company van parked outside on the curb. “I’m gonna head upstairs a sec and see if everything’s all right with the queen bee.”

  The guys wave me off. Not even Vince sends me a second glance, and I wonder if it’s because he would never think that Mina and I . . .

  That Mina and I what?

  Jaw clenching, I shove away the thought and head for the stairs that lead up to her apartment. I didn’t have the chance to scope out the second floor when I was here earlier in the week, and now I can’t help but note every creak and whine under my heavy work boots. The dark, wooden walls are splintered, too, with slivers of concrete peeking through. When I get to the top of the stairwell, there’s no disguising the floorboards that sink an inch when I step over them.

  Gamóto.

  It’s not just the salon downstairs that needs an entire overhaul, but clearly the brownstone itself hasn’t had its heyday in decades.

  If ever.

  Did Mina choose this place because it was all she could afford? Or did she see the beauty in the ruination and want to be the one to bring it back to life? My gut tells me it’s the latter. Even when we were younger, she had a way of making a person feel seen, even appreciated. It makes sense that she’d bring that same attitude to a dilapidated building.

  Standing in front of her door, I knock sharply. Once. Twice.

  There’s the distinct sound of shuffling inside, but then all I hear are the guys ribbing each other downstairs.

  I knock again.

  And again.

  “Ermione!”

  Another meeting of my fist on the pale blue door, and then it’s swinging open and I’m glancing down and—

  “Jesus,” I grunt when I catch sight of her, “you look like hell.”

  She’s wrapped up in a comforter, bundled tightly from neck to calf as though the heat’s gone out in her apartment and she’s on the verge of turning into Olaf from Frozen. Her cheeks burn a bright pink, the same color as the whites of her eyes. And her hair . . . her hair is a mess atop her head, piled high in a bun that’s seconds away from coming undone.

  She swipes her tongue over her bottom lip like she’s parched for nourishment. “Nick,” she whispers, her voice softer than I’ve ever heard it, “what are you . . . what’re you doing here?”

  Hell if I know.

  Ten minutes ago, I was ready to chew her ass out for turning into a flighty mess and forgetting that we planned to meet.

  And now . . .

  Without an explanation, I nudge her back into the apartment, my hands closing in on her shoulders. Or, well, the comforter that’s swallowing her frame. I grab a handful of fluff and polyester, but it’s enough to fill my palms as I twirl her around. Kick the door shut behind me. “It was our first day on the job, remember?”

  There’s a minute pause and then her head droops forward in defeat. “Crap, crap, crap. I’m so sorry”—she licks her lips again, and I inhale sharply, tearing my gaze away—“I-I woke up this morning and . . .” She sways slightly, and before I can change my mind, I’ve got her hefted up and in my arms. “Nick. Nick, put me down.”

  As if she could make it another five seconds on her feet.

  I lift my chin, giving her room to duck her face into the crook of my neck. I cradle her like I would a lover, one arm looped under her knees, fingers flirting dangerously with the curve of her ass—over the comforter, of course—and the other nestled behind her back. I guess it’s a good thing we’re exchanging favors nowadays: she is dating me, after all.

  Somewhat.

  In theory.

  “Bed,” I mutter under my breath, scanning the apartment’s tiny layout. A small kitchen sits off to the right and the living room is nothing more than a loveseat and a TV perched on top of an ancient stand. There’s nothing about the space that screams Mina Pappas. It lacks all of her creativity, all of her flair. “Is it the flu?”

  She shakes her head, one of her arms coming up to hook around my neck. “Migraine. I get them . . . a lot.”

  Worry pierces me as I carry her down the short hallway, passing a bathroom on the right that doesn’t look big enough for a shower, let alone a tub, and then to the only other door. Assuming it’s her bedroom, I nudge it open with my shoulder and spot her bed. The sheets are in disarray, a pillow sits on the floor, abandoned, and the blinds are pulled shut over the window.

  It feels like a prison.

  After growing up in a tiny third-floor apartment in Cambridge with the smallest, most inconveniently sized windows, I’m a guy who needs natural light, and a lot of it. Within a month of buying my house, I knocked out the back wall and put in all glass. Mina’s apartment reminds me of my childhood home—and that’s not a compliment.

  I set her down on the bed, then nab the pillow off the floor and stuff it behind her head, along with two others that are strewn in the far corner of the mattress.

  Mina releases a soft moan at the sensation of me pulling the comforter out from around her body. She reaches for the blankets immediately, muttering about how cold she is, and I do my best to simply break her cocoon and lay the comforter flat across her without pulling it away from her skin.

  “I hate them,” she whispers, kicking her feet beneath the sheet.

  Against my better judgment, I sit next to her. Plant one hand down next to her hip as I lean forward and press the back of my hand to her clammy forehead the way Vince did to me not even thirty minutes ago. “You hate the sheets?” I ask, trying to tease her. I should probably let her know that we picked her lock and technically broke in, but I figure it’s best to leave that for later, when she’s not looking like misery run over.

  She burrows deeper in the blankets, turning her face away from my hand. “The headaches.”

  Ah. I pull back, curling my fingers into a fist that I dig into the mattress next to my ass. Don’t touch her. It seems i
ronic that I need to remind myself of that, but I’ve never enjoyed seeing her sad. Not back when I taught that douchebag bully a lesson. Not on her prom night, when not a single guy had asked her to go, and she flipped the script to hide her hurt. She’d set up shop in my mother’s living room, doing the hair of all the girls going to the dance. Effie acted as her bookie, collecting payment, while Mina curled hair and created up-dos and showed off her entrepreneurial spirit. But I’d seen the hurt in her eyes, the loneliness, and I would have done pretty much anything to make her smile.

  Except kiss her when she clearly wanted it.

  My knuckles crack as I shift my weight on the mattress. “I don’t remember you getting headaches all that often as a kid.”

  Blearily, she peers up at me. Long, spiky lashes. Pink cheeks that speak to being ill and not a reaction to having me in her bedroom. It’s been six years since we sat on a mattress together, and yet it strangely feels like no time at all. Finally, she edges out, “Older.” She squeezes her eyes shut, then tries again. “They got bad in my twenties. Symptoms of dyslexia.” The snort she lets out should sound sarcastic—I’m more than positive she meant it that way—but it strikes me as sad.

  Resigned.

  And then my brain rewinds her words and locks on only one: dyslexia.

  I didn’t even know she had dyslexia at all, although . . . it makes sense. All those years of listening to her struggle in Greek school, of her coming to our house on the weekends and quietly asking for my mom to help her with the words, and the writing, and the reading.

  Why had she never asked her own mother?

  The question slams into me, and I mentally drop it in a box and close the lid. It’s none of my business.

  “What can I do for you?” I watch her expression for any sign of discomfort, then question my own motives. Helping with the renovation does not extend to helping her feel better. But I don’t move away from the bed. If anything, I trail my gaze over the shape of her arm under the comforter. She’s tapping her fingers even now, and her knuckles create tiny tents beneath the red fabric. I settle my hand over hers, squeezing her fingers. “Would caffeine help?”

  She shuts her eyes but doesn’t move her hand away. “Sometimes. Yeah.”

  “You got any coffee?”

  A quick nod on her part, and I stand.

  In the kitchen, I set about getting the miracle java going. As the coffee brews, I take a small tour of her main living area. Aside from the sofa and TV, she’s got very little in the way of furniture or personal items. A picture of her and Effie sits on the little kitchen island that doubles as a table. Next to that one is another of her and her siblings at Katya’s college graduation party from a few years back.

  Mina’s hair is still bright pink in the photo. Her smile is wide, her lips stained a dark plum that matches the shade of her dress and heels. She looks confident, edgy, and completely different than the woman currently huddled in her bedroom and hiding from the world.

  I send a quick text to Vince that I’ll be down in thirty, but that I’m handling a family emergency upstairs.

  Pouring the coffee into a mug I found in one of the cabinets, I add milk and sugar, just the way she likes it. Quickly, I sponge down the spoon I used, and tuck it back into its drawer. I do the same with the bowl that’s in the sink and a tall glass. The last thing she needs when this migraine bites the dust is a load of dishes that still need washing. I put them up, then head back to Mina’s room. I knock once on the door, just to give her a head’s up, then shoulder my way inside. The room’s exactly as I left it—moody, dark, with walls painted a godawful green that would make even the Joker cringe—but Mina . . .

  I slam to a halt, my heart crashing against my rib cage, and I draw in a sharp breath through my nose.

  In the time that I left, she tossed the comforter to the side and sprawled out on her stomach. No pants, only panties.

  A thong, if we’re being specific about it.

  Holy. Fuck.

  Her T-shirt rides up her back, exposing her bare ass to me and to God and to anyone else who cares to take a look. And, in that moment, I care. A lot. More than I should. About the lush curve of her ass, the nip of her waist, the tattoo that covers her right butt cheek.

  Holy. Fuck.

  Mina’s never made it a secret that she likes her ink. I’ve noticed the delicate tattoo on her inner wrist and the other one, on her rib cage, I recall from seeing a picture of her in a bikini on Facebook two summers ago. But this one . . . I blink slowly and feel heat stir low in my groin.

  “Coffee?” she rasps from the bed, lifting her head just far enough so she’s not talking into the pillow.

  Eliminating the distance between us, when she’s practically naked from the waist down, does not seem like a good idea.

  No, it doesn’t, Saint Nick.

  Fuck the sainthood. I’m dying for a closer look.

  What, exactly, does she have inked on her ass? And why there of all places?

  I step close, gaze glued to bare, tan skin, and brush the backs of my fingers over her shoulder when I stand next to the bed. Her head is turned away from me, but the right half of the mattress is pressed flush with the wall, leaving me no room to stand over on that side, even if I wanted.

  Unless I crawl onto the bed.

  Get close to that tattoo and her warm skin and—

  “Oh.”

  Every muscle in my body goes taut at the shocked vibration in her voice, and I fix my attention on her face. Only to find that her attention isn’t on my face.

  No, she’s looking at my crotch.

  At, specifically, the tent in my pants that shows no signs of going away anytime soon.

  Gamóto.

  Shit.

  Dammit.

  I clear my throat. “I brought you the coffee.”

  She hasn’t looked away from my dick. In the dim lighting of the room, it’s tough to tell if her cheeks are still pink but one thing’s for sure: there’s no denying the way she licks her lips.

  Her throat is dry, maláka. Give her the coffee!

  “Here,” I grunt, because it’s either that or ask for the little details I’m dying to know. All details that pertain to her ass and that tattoo. Now that she’s on her side, butt facing the wall, I’ve got no chance of satisfying my . . . curiosity.

  For my little sister’s best friend.

  I’m going straight to hell for this one—a one-way ticket for Saint Nick who isn’t feeling saintly at all right now.

  I set the mug down on the nightstand with a heavy clunk. “I’ve got to go.”

  “That wouldn’t fit in my bikini bottoms anymore.”

  Obviously, she’s delirious. Obviously, she’s probably drugged up on over-the-counter medicine to counterattack her migraine. Obviously, I shouldn’t say, “It barely fit when I was sixteen either.”

  But I do say it. Oh, fuck, do I.

  The mattress creaks beneath her weight, her hand squishing the pillow as she leverages herself up onto her knees. She’s eye level with my hard-on now, her mouth inches away from delivering me straight to perdition.

  “Am I dreaming?”

  Finally, she looks up at me with glassy eyes. “Nope,” I croak out, “completely lucid.”

  Completely. Fucking. Lucid.

  I want to sink my hand into that messy hair of hers and tug her close, until her lips are pressed to the zipper of my jeans. Until her fingers are popping open the brass button and my legs are threatening to mutiny and give out beneath me.

  Until I’m so lost in her, that everything else fades to black.

  The bed whines again beneath her, and I’m aware of her flopping back onto her ass, her knees bent and spread open wide as she blinks up at me, a crooked, medication-induced smile on her face. That thong . . . Jesus, it’s barely a scrap of cloth, covering close to nothing, and I do what I should have done when I first walked in and saw her almost naked: I yank on her T-shirt and cover up the goods.

  She swats at my ha
nds, batting me away, laughing as if it’s all a game.

  “I remember when I saw you naked, your . . . tsutsuli”—here she waves at my dick, just shy of pointing—“when you were ten.”

  I choke on air, my lungs threatening to burst wide open. In my sternest voice, I warn, “Mina.”

  She only sways, wrapping her fingers up in the T-shirt’s fabric, and stares at my erection that will not get the hint and go the fuck down. It perks up under her avid stare. Jesus, take the wheel.

  “It was small then,” she says, words slurring over each other. Whatever medication she took must be pulling its weight because she giggles and slaps her hand over her open mouth. “Oops! I’m not supposed to say that.”

  Someone kill me.

  Voice pitched low, I mutter, “I can promise that all parts of me have grown proportionally.”

  As though the heavens have parted to shine down on me, I watch as her naturally olive cheeks flush with color. Her wide-eyed stare flicks from my face to my crotch and then back again. “You’re not supposed to say that.”

  No, I’m not. But neither am I supposed to get hard when it comes to her: Mina, Effie’s best friend, a girl I’ve known since I was eight. There are so many things wrong with this picture, starting with the fact that I need to get the hell out of here.

  “I need to go.”

  She blinks, then snatches up the comforter to drag over her lap. Thank God. “Where?”

  “Downstairs.” Away. I need to go swing some hammers—and not the one in my pants that’s offering to do the pounding. “With the guys.”

  “The guys?” A low, long breath falls from her lips, as though she’s done too much strenuous activity. Like sit up and flash me, and stare at my erection. All in a day’s work around here, I guess. “Did you use the key I gave you?” she asks.

  Hello, Saint Nick is on vacation this week. Please leave your message after the beeeeep!

  If only my life was as easy as a voicemail recording. I could excuse all sorts of not-so-nice-guy behavior. Like climbing onto the mattress, laying my body out over Mina’s, and showing her all the ways I’d love to—