Hold Me Today Read online

  I turn, only to find Nick balancing a cardboard tray stuffed full of coffee cups from Dunkin’s and a bag with what I assume are donuts. At least, I hope they’re donuts. I lift a brow. “Really?” I tease him. “From experience?”

  Long-legged strides bring him to the receptionist’s desk that we pushed into the corner of the room last week. He sets the coffees and donuts down before dragging off his damp coat and dropping it on the floor. “Gave me nightmares,” he says, snagging one of the coffees from the tray. “You think you know a guy until you see his dick for the first time.”

  I grin. “Strangely, I can relate.”

  I watch as he moves toward me, and not for the first time, I can’t help but admire his prowl. He walks with his hips, all loose, masculine fluidity that can turn a girl’s brain to mush without a single bit of effort.

  When he stops before me, I lift my chin and let my gaze climb up his sweatshirt-covered chest to the strong lines of his face. “Trust me,” he murmurs, “Vince’s a shocker down under.”

  “A shocker?”

  He holds up his free hand, thumb and index finger barely separated by air. “Small, if you catch my drift. Vincent Miceli’s been disappointing women around the world since circa 1986.”

  Nick’s GM cuts loose a hearty laugh. “Bastard. The only shock happening is when your jaw hit the floor the first time you caught a gander of The Great One.”

  I lean toward Nick and drop my voice to a whisper. “Why do I get the feeling he’s speaking about his penis and capitalizing the great one?”

  Nick bends, bringing himself down to my level. The tip of his nose brushes the shell of my ear and my poor, needy body reacts all oooh-that-feels-nice. Goosebumps flare to life on my skin. “That’s because his mama never taught him that lying to yourself might be good for morale but sets you up for a lifetime of anticlimactic moments. Poor guy’s figuring it out the hard way, one small dick joke at a time.”

  Anticlimactic moments. Oh, puns, how I love you so.

  Poor Vince.

  My shoulders shake with barely leashed mirth. I don’t want Vince to think I’m laughing at his expense—even though I’m sure Nick’s only busting his balls as guys do—but, still, I’m totally laughing at his expense.

  A firm hand connects with the small of my back, and the unexpected touch is enough to stem my laughter and clam me right up. I jerk my gaze up, only to find Nick already watching me with his full lips tugged up in a big grin. “Yia sena,” he husks out. For you.

  I glance down.

  A little thrill zips through me when I see the coffee he’s offering. Above the Dunkin’s logo is my full name scrawled in black marker. Our fingers brush when I take it from him. “Thank you.” I make a point to blow the steam away from the plastic lid and take a small sip in gratitude. “You didn’t have to grab me anything.”

  His smile deepens, carving shallow dimples into each of his cheeks. “Couldn’t leave you hanging this early in the morning.” Briefly, so briefly I wonder if I imagine it, he applies pressure to my back before stepping away. “Coffee’s up for grabs, guys. Same with the donuts.”

  Bill and Mark exchange a glance.

  “He’s trying to butter us up before dropping bad news,” Bill grumbles with a middle finger rubbing along his hairline. Wicked subtle move, right there.

  Nick only laughs. “The bad news is that one of you gets the wicked exclusive opportunity to come with me to check out the museum today.”

  “What?”

  “Holy shit, dude. We got it?”

  “Hell fucking yeah!” Vince calls out, rounding off the group’s enthusiasm. “I knew we’d get the bid.”

  “What bid?”

  My question echoes in the salon, and all four men turn to me in unison. In the soft, morning light, Nick’s ears pinken. It’s Vince who actually answers. He sidles up to his boss, throwing an arm around Nick’s broad shoulders. “This guy right here”—he palms the side of Nick’s face like a brother would—“just booked Stamos Restoration and Co. into the tightest race Boston’s seen in light-years.”

  Bill lifts his gaze to the ceiling and lets out an aggrieved sigh. “First Shakespeare, now Star Wars. You’re a goddamn pop-culture reference book, Miceli.”

  Vince ignores him completely, his dark eyes fixed on me. “There’s a new history museum opening, a few blocks away, actually. It’s all about the Victorian era in Boston, and Nick here landed us the deal to restore the building in prep for the curators to come in and doll the place up.”

  “Wow.” I flick my attention to Nick, who looks mighty uncomfortable under all the praise. “That’s amazing!”

  He doesn’t shrug, but the forced nonchalance in his expression does the shrugging for him. “It’s a job like any other.”

  Except that it doesn’t feel that way. I think of his miniature wooden structures in his office, all those hours spent perfecting the smallest, most intricate architectural details. Like me, Nick is a creator. An artist. Our chosen mediums may be different, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a complete badass. In the last few weeks, I’ve spent more nights wishing I could watch him work on finishing the church spire than I care to admit.

  Sensing that he wants the subject to change pronto, I say, “And I bet you’ll rock it like any other job.”

  The smile he gives me is one of relief. “Just like I need to rock this job.” Pivoting on his heel, he crosses the room and grabs a donut from the container. Frosted chocolate, from the looks of it. He pops the small, round ball of chewy delight into his mouth, then sucks the glaze from his thumb.

  Excuse me while I forget how to breathe.

  No man has any right to look so sexy eating a donut. Seriously, no right at all.

  Like a woman obsessed, my breath gets lodged somewhere in my throat when Nick opts for another and lifts it to his lips. He surveys Agape with a critical eye while he chews. “Drywall by Wednesday, guys. Today, let’s put up the rest of the frames and start on the insulation.” He gestures toward the receptionist’s desk. “Hit up the coffee and then we’ll get going.”

  Warm coffee cup in hand, I stare at the exposed wooden beams of the rearranged walls of the back rooms and hallway, unable to envision the end result—not the way I instinctively can when I’m cutting a client’s hair or applying color.

  “You look worried.”

  I twist at the waist toward the sound of Nick’s voice. “I’m not.”

  “No?” He steps in close. Angles his body so that we’re elbow to elbow. “What then?”

  “Honestly?” My right shoulder hikes up in a shrug. “I’m admiring your work. I know ‘amazing’ is such a bland word nowadays. It’s tossed around, used for every bit of praise, but I just . . .” I lift my free hand toward the restructured walls. “You see a room, a house, and you know exactly what to do to bring it to life. And that’s—that’s pretty amazing.”

  Silence is my only answer, and then he’s clasping a hand around my elbow and encouraging me to follow him. Vince and Bill and Mark shoot the shit behind us, ribbing each other mercilessly about some fantasy football league they’re all in, while Nick steers me toward his work bench.

  Although perhaps calling it a work bench is a bit of a stretch.

  It’s more like a long board of plywood boosted up on stacked paint cans. I take a sip of the warm brew and watch as he sifts through large, illustrated mock-ups. I recognize most from the plans he emailed me last week, but my interest spikes when I spot a drawing that looks a lot like a mosaic. He flips past it, shuffling it in with the others, before stopping at a black-and-white sketch. Fingertip to the corner of the sheet, he spins it around for me to get a good look.

  “After stalking your Pinterest board, I wanted your thoughts on this.”

  Anticipation spurs my feet forward. Closing the gap, I feel my heart give an extra thud of excitement when I realize what exactly he’s showing me. At least, what I think he’s showing me. I set the coffee down on the plywood, away from his sketches
. “Is this—”

  “Yeah, it is.” Nick threads his fingers through his thick hair, then lets his hand fall to the plywood. Beneath the fabric of his nondescript gray T-shirt, his muscled arms bunch and tighten. “A hydrotherapy room? No way I could skip it after all those pictures you pinned. Here, let me show you.”

  He cuts around the work bench. I expect him to stand beside me and point out all the details my untrained eye has missed. He doesn’t. Instead, he ambles up behind me, leaving no doubt in my mind that he’s got zero regrets about what went down last night. My breath hitches when he nudges me forward, until my pelvis collides with the plywood and he’s dropping his hands onto the bench on either side of me.

  “You good with this?” he asks, leveling his profile alongside mine. And I swear I can feel the stubble of his jaw against my cheek. Holy-friggin-cannoli. Or, more appropriately, holy-friggin-baklava.

  His thumbs skate over my pinkies, and my brain hollers, don’t forget to breathe if you want to live! Living seems overrated when I’ve got a six-foot-plus Adonis plastered to my back. Blocked in as I am, I can’t see Vince or the other guys behind us, and I can only imagine what they’re thinking right now.

  But maybe . . . maybe this is good, right? His family might not believe we’re dating, but the same can’t be said for his employees.

  “Yeah,” I whisper, “I’m all good.”

  Against my back, I feel his chest deflate as though he was holding his breath, too. “Good,” he mutters, “that’s good.” His left hand lowers over mine, and then he’s moving my fingers to trace the skeleton of the sketch, skirting along the periphery. “I know this wasn’t in the initial plans I sent you, but I’m a firm believer in reaching for what you want.”

  “Achieving your temporary longing.”

  His fingers squeeze mine gently. “More like making it permanent.” He pauses, and maybe it’s my imagination but I hope he’s as entranced by the sight of us holding hands as I am. Like a time capsule, it feels like we’re teenagers again and experiencing lust for the first time. A handhold can be as exciting as a hot make-out session, if it’s with the right person. Nick’s thumb traces the outer line of my palm, dipping to the indentation of my wrist. “Anyway,” he says, “I want you to have this, if it’s what you want.”

  It is what I want, but that doesn’t mean I have the extra funds to consider anything but the bare necessities. Floors, sinks, mirrors, hairdryers—those are the necessities. A hydrotherapy room, equipped with a massage table and a whirlpool, aren’t even in the same galaxy here.

  Mistaking my silence as the go-ahead, Nick scoots a little to my left, all the better to point out the features marked on the blueprint. “I’ve been doing a shit ton of research over the last week, and with this . . . you’ll leave your competition in the dust, Mina.” He releases my hand to sift through his mock-ups for yet another. The second blueprint he lays over the first, and I realize the paper is nearly translucent. Between the two, his vision for the room crackles to life: Edison bulbs hanging from the ceiling, a Vichy shower set out in one corner of the room with a marble wall to keep it out of sight from the hydrotherapy tub. The floors are dark, and I eye his scribbles in the corner of the page: rosewood walls, slate floors, a periwinkle-painted ceiling.

  It’s . . . stunning.

  And so out of my price point that I want to sob at the loss of it, even though it’s nothing but a mere thought in his head. Except now it’s in mine too, and I wish I could bring it to life with nothing but the snap of my fingers.

  I turn to face him. “Nick . . .”

  His head jerks up and those pewter eyes home in on me. “Is it too much?”

  “No. No, it’s perfect.” If anything, it’s almost too perfect. “But I can’t afford this. You know I can’t afford this.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “We?” I point to him, then stab my chest with the same finger. “Me, Nick. I need to figure this out, and I can’t increase my budget. Maybe by a grand—I could scrape it together.” Instead of dining out and hitting up the town like my peers, I’m scraping pennies together by feasting on Ramen noodles and taking cold-ass showers at the age of thirty. Forget the fact that I haven’t even furnished my apartment more than is needed. All my money, every last dime, is in this hair salon. Shaking my head, I flatten my palm over Nick’s beautifully etched draft, so I can’t be tempted by what I can’t afford. “Nowhere in the budget do I have room for the sort of money we’re talking about here.”

  He blows out a frustrated breath. “Any news on the asswipe who stole your cash?”

  “I wish, but no.” I purse my lips together, determined to hold my ground on this. “No extra money is coming my way, so although I love what you’ve done—and I’ll be dreaming about it for years to come—we need to keep it simple.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  I feel my nostrils flare. “No, you won’t.” I wave an arm at the rest of Agape. “You’re doing enough already, don’t you think? I’m not—I’m not a charity case.”

  The balls of his shoulders practically bulge as he plants his weight on his fists and leans forward. His chin juts forward when he growls, “No one said you’re a charity case, Ermione. We have a deal, don’t we?”

  I think back to the Celebrity Tea article Effie sent me, and I wonder if he’s seen it yet this morning. As much as I want to bring it up—and, better yet, discuss us—my stubborn streak boils to life, all to prove a point. At the end of the day, last night’s private moment was captured and posted for the masses. It wasn’t an orchestrated date, designed and premeditated to show Nick as someone moving on from the havoc of the show. No, we were spotted by a douchebag pap hiding out in a car or in the bushes, which means I effectively did nothing. He’s got Vince and Bill and Mark out here working day-in and day-out to finish off my salon, and I’m . . . well, truth is, I’m getting a whole lot more out of this deal of ours than he is. I can’t—I won’t—allow him to throw anymore freebies my way.

  My pride can’t handle it.

  And neither do I want to think of Agape and remember that it was built solely upon begged favors. It’s an acidic, toxic thought, and my fingers launch into a tap-tap-tap rhythm, even as my gut twists.

  Keeping my voice low, I meet Nick’s gaze. “The deal is on, but there’s no room for addendums. A hydrotherapy room is off the table. Not open for discussion.”

  A tick flares to life in his jaw. “We didn’t sign a contract, Mina.”

  “An oversight, maybe, considering how much you love your rules.”

  He keeps talking, as though I didn’t just hand deliver a jab. “No contract means we’re not legally bound to keep to the terms of the same deal.” His gaze falls to my mouth, and my core heats like he’s directly wired my body to respond to him and him only. Chris Hemsworth could walk into Agape right now and I doubt I’d be as needy for him, a Hollywood A-lister, as I am for Nick. It’s ridiculously unfair. “Adjustments,” he adds, “can be applied as necessary.”

  No, they can’t. I bite the words back and ask instead, “What sort of adjustments are we talking about here?”

  My mouth practically tingles under his intense, steady stare. “I’m sure we can get creative.”

  Oh, my God.

  He did not just insinuate that, that—

  “I-I’m not going to sleep with you for a jacuzzi, you jerk.” I push against his chest and fight an eye roll when he doesn’t even a budge. “And, for the record, I would sleep with you. Actually, I’ve thought about sleeping with you for years, as you very well know because my best friend can’t keep her lips sealed, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to just . . . just open my legs like some eighteenth-century socialite all for a pretty room.” I jab him in the chest again, right over the heart, and then proceed to emphasize every word with another finger-thrust. “End. Of. Discussion.”

  I twist away, not even acknowledging the wide-eyed stares I’m getting from the guys, and head for the stairs up to
my apartment. Nick Stamos may be my teenage crush, and he may be as hot as Hades, but I’ve got my pride. I’ve got my self-respect. And if he even thinks for one second that I’ll jump in bed with him for a massage room, then he doesn’t know me at all.

  I don’t have room in my life for asshole men.

  Not even him.

  18

  Nick

  “Goddamn, you really have a way with women, Stamos.”

  I barely take the time to flip Vince the bird before I’m storming after Mina.

  “No, but for real, is this the sort of shit we can anticipate happening on that show you went on?” he shouts after me. “Your face was on Us Weekly this morning, by the way!”

  Cutting a quick glare over my shoulder, I thrust a finger at my guys. “Lunch break. Take a fucking lunch break before—”

  “He’s cursin’ in English,” Bill says to Mark with a shoulder-nudge and a flat, open palm that he curls in a come-hither motion. “Give me my five bucks, man. I told you he’d crack before noon today. I just had that feeling, like when my bones ache before a bad storm.”

  “That’s called arthritis, you moron.”

  I slam the door up to Mina’s apartment closed, blocking out the ribbing of all three morons who call themselves my friends. And what the hell did they mean my face is on Us Weekly? Doesn’t matter, I’ll deal with that later.

  I take the stairs two at a time. “Mina!” My voice bellows out like a foghorn and I’m surprised the walls don’t tremble in fear. I feel at loose ends, like I’m on the verge of coming undone and all because of a fucking jacuzzi. I thought she’d love the idea. I thought I could ruffle any flared feathers by telling her she could consider it as my thank-you for accompanying me to the crazy shit show that will be Maine in two weekends.

  I thought—though all my thinking doesn’t seem to be doing me any damn good—that she’d see I spent more time than necessary studying every pin on her Pinterest board and doing everything in my power to make her dream a reality.