Home > Hold Me Today (Put A Ring On It #1)(14)

Hold Me Today (Put A Ring On It #1)(14)
Author: Maria Luis

Pushing off the wall, he slips past me but turns once he’s another foot or two away. Walking backward, toward the main room of Agape, he flashes me a small, get-ready-for-it grin that lights me aflame. “I know that you liked me for years, Ermione. That, on the night of your prom, I crushed you when you realized I wasn’t going to kiss you. It made me sick, thinking that, when all I wanted to do was to make you feel better, that I’d somehow made you feel worse instead.”

Ringing.

A loud, ear-piercing ring is all I hear as his words sink in and the floor beneath my feet fails to heed my wishes and do me a solid.

By opening up and swallowing me whole.

“Nick,” I whisper because, oh my God, I need to say something. Holy shit. Holy shit, I’m panicking. Straight up, freaking out as I stare at my best friend’s older brother who apparently has known for years that I spent the majority of our youth wanting him the same way all the girls in my school wanted Nick from the Backstreet Boys. I’d wanted a different Nick, one less famous, and yet it might as well have been the same thing: neither me nor any of my classmates were going to get the Nick we wanted.

I swipe my tongue over my suddenly dry lips. I feel parched. On the verge of dehydration and a new illness called fuck-me-sideways-this-can’t-be-happening-itis. The cure: currently unknown. “Nick—”

He watches me steadily, and there it is—the challenge in his gaze . . . proving me wrong. That I don’t know him at all and have maybe never really known him.

“Tell me something,” he says, turning on his heel as he moves toward the main room. He casts a quick glance over his shoulder, and I can’t read him again. Embarrassment slinks into my veins and turns my limbs to liquid ice. “Tell me all about your dream salon and don’t leave a damn thing out. I’m gonna bring it to life for you, just you wait and see.”

The last thing I actually see before he turns the corner is his amazing ass in those dark jeans he’s wearing.

This was supposed to be an exchange of services: he pulls a Chip and Joanna Gaines and rehabs my salon and I fake-date him until the paparazzi learn that Nick is the most boring lead who’ll ever exist.

Except . . .

Nick apparently beat up the bully who made my life hell in high school.

And he knew how I felt about him on prom night when he danced with me in his arms, and I learned that even though I was finally eighteen and totally fair game, he’d fallen for someone else.

The woman who dumped him at the altar six years later.

10

Mina

“Welcome to our final stop of the night, Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, where the tombstones are riddled with bullet holes and full-body apparitions are often spotted under the starry night sky.”

Almost in unison, every member in the tour group holds up their cell phones and cameras and trains them on Effie, who’s perched next to a tombstone and decked out in full eighteenth-century garb.

It’s been a few months since I last joined my best friend on one of her tours, and since I’ve heard this particular ghost story at least as many times as I’ve watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I linger at the back of the group and keep my hands stuffed deep in the pockets of my wool coat.

The bite of the February wind cuts through my thick, fleece-lined leggings and I burrow deep in my scarf. It’s cold, my nipples feel like frozen raisins in my bra, and I’ve spent the last two miles wondering why I opted for a dress tonight instead of jeans. Fashion over comfort was not the right decision, my friends.

I may have begged Effie for a girl’s night—all the better to corner her and ask when the hell she told Nick how I’d crushed on him for years—but with the touring season slowing down for the next few months, I wasn’t about to miss tonight for anything.

When you’re best friends with someone, their successes become your successes and I make sure to hop on Effie’s tours as often as possible. Tonight, she’s got a few of the Boston Blades, and their significant others, along for a spooky walk through the city. It’s a huge step for her career, and when she blurted out the news over the phone earlier today, excitement dogging every word, I knew my night would be spent tromping around graveyards and narrow, gaslit streets.

“And the bullets?” one of the hockey players calls out, his arm wrapped around a willowy redhead. “That’s a real story?”

Effie tugs her shawl tighter around her shoulders, then lifts her lantern—all the better to cast a creepy shadow across her face. Her stained red lips part, and then she’s giving the crowd her “tour guide” voice, deepening it to a raspy husk and stepping forward so that they’re forced to clear a small circle for her.

“Legend has it that the British used this cemetery for target practice during the Revolutionary War. They ducked behind those gravestones you’re standing next to”—she mimics the words themselves, her dress billowing out as she crouches, lantern still held at chin-level—“and prepared for the Battle of Bunker Hill. Boston was anti-loyalist at its heart, and the broken relationship between the colonialists and the Tories is still responsible, centuries later, for the ghost sightings spotted here.”

One of the players—a huge, hulking guy with dark hair—creeps backward, feet silent on the grass and soil. He catches me watching, lifts a finger to his mouth to keep me quiet, and tiptoes in the way only a six-foot-plus giant can: like the Hulk prowling through the night.

“Orbs are the most common paranormal phenomena seen here, but a word for the wise,” Effie says, “if you’re taking photos, I suggest taking more than one consecutively. If something stays in one spot, it’s likely just dust or—”

“Boom!”

The Hulk-slash-Blades player claps one of his teammates on the back, an arm circling his neck.

“Beaumont!” the unsuspecting dark-haired guy barks out. “You fucking asshole, man.”

Beaumont releases him with a there-there pat that has everyone else laughing. “Aw, Cap,” he says, “don’t tell me you pissed yourself.”

“Cap” turns to the blonde woman next to him. “I’m going to kill him,” he says with an air of finality.

The blonde laughs and squeezes Cap’s bicep. “Good news,” she tells him, “if you’re going to do it, now’s the time. So many graves—what’s one more?” She leans in and mock-whispers, “No one will ever have to know.”

Cap releases a husky chuckle, and then calls out to Effie. “Sorry my teammates are buffoons. I try not to let them loose more than once a month.”

My best friend grins. “Might I suggest a collar to wrangle them in?”

That has everyone rolling, and by the time she’s wrapping up the tour fifteen minutes later, Jackson “Cap” Carter has promised Effie five rink-side tickets and a glowing five-star review online.

“Sarah’s going to be beside herself,” I murmur after the Blades and their other halves have descended the narrow, stone steps that lead down to the street from the elevated graveyard. “Free hockey tickets? The gods are shining down on us.”

In the lantern’s dim light, I catch Effie’s eye roll before she flicks off the lamp and Copp’s Hill is eclipsed by only the ambient light of the city. “I’m not even going to pretend that I’d win out over hockey.” She raises one hand, palm flat and facing the sky, and tips the scale as she lifts the lantern a notch higher. “Me or hockey?” Her hands seesaw, up and down. “Me or hockey? Let’s not fool ourselves here. Hockey wins every time.”

“Those players did have very nice behinds.” At Effie’s deadpan stare, I shrug. “What? We can both appreciate a fine ass, no matter the gender. Like yours? Perfection. Feel free to give me some of the tightness factor, would you? I’m already developing the Pappas cellulite and I swear I’m too young for it.”

My best friend nudges me forward with a hand to my shoulder. “Your ass is fine, Mina.”

“It’s big.”

“Guys like big.”

“Who cares about what guys like?” I tease, the soles of my ankle boots echoing over the stone steps. “My jeans are currently at my apartment and staging a revolt the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Revolutionary War. I’m scared the seams are on the verge of losing.”

“On that note, how do you feel about Italian?”

I laugh lightly. Copp’s Hill sits on the periphery of the North End, which is famous for its Italian heritage, its Italian restaurants, and the number of Italian flags spray-painted on the streets. Our dinner options quite literally consist of Italian pizza, Italian pasta, and Italian dessert—all of which will terrify my jeans even more. Thank God for skirts, though, and leggings.

“I’m in,” I say, putting up a hand for a high-five.

Together, we buckle down against the nippy breeze whipping off the harbor just blocks away. At this time of night, the neighborhood is quiet as we meander toward the popular Hanover Street. Effie’s wide hoop skirt bumps into me every other step, and I end up walking on the street while she takes up the width of the beyond-narrow sidewalk.

“Did Sarah want to come out for dinner?” Loosely, I wrap my hand around my hair to keep the strands from whipping me in the face. “Or is she still buckling down for that deadline?”

Effie lets out a little sigh. “I know she’s stressed when I have to remind her to shower. Her boss is just such a jerk. You’d think they were working on a miracle life-saving drug the way they’re all camped out at the office at all times of night.”

Sarah works for one of the big investment firms in the city, but her latest project is centered around kids’ toys. In particular, if one up and coming company should warrant any money from her firm.

Anytime I used to complain about a client at the salon giving me hell, I reminded myself that at least I wasn’t sleeping at my desk at all hours of the night, only to wake up and do it all over again. Sarah is a beast, and though we share ambition, my dreams allow for showers.

   
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