Her laughter greets my ears. “I love when art takes shape. No one tattoo is the same as any other—they all take on the slightest deviation.” She shrugs in my hold, stepping back. I miss her warmth immediately, but there’s something in her expression that steals my attention away from the activity below my belt. Raw honesty lingers there, furrowing her brow as she rocks back on her heels. “Tattoos are like people. We’re all unique. We all have our own temporary longings”—here, she flashes me a grin—“but whereas relationships can be fleeting, tattoos are an imprint of a memory marked in the skin. A snapshot of emotion or a moment forgotten to time and distance.”
In twenty-four years, Mina has never opened up to me like this.
It’s . . . humbling.
A wisp of black hair swoops across her forehead, and I itch to tuck it behind her ear. But the sexually-charged moment is gone, and it feels awkward—no, not awkward but inappropriate—to touch her. To want to touch her.
Temporary insanity.
This walk has been nothing but temporary insanity specifically designed to send my brain cells scattering like marbles on a downhill slope. Inevitable, perhaps, given how we’ve circled around each other for decades, but insanity nonetheless.
And yet I can’t tear my gaze away from her.
“They’re going to be wondering where we are,” she says.
Let them wonder.
Squashing the thought into nothingness, I shove my hands into my jeans’ pockets. “Your favorite one.”
“What?”
I tilt my head toward my parent’s house, then clarify, “Before we go back inside, I want to know your favorite tattoo.” It’s not my place, not my business, but I throw down the gauntlet anyway.
Seconds tick by as she watches me and I study her. We say nothing, allowing tonight’s insanity to sweep away with the chilly night wind. Then, just when I expect her to bypass me, she steps in close. Her hand goes over my heart, her body angled parallel to mine, as though she’s already prepared to run.
“To the surprise of no one,” she says, humor lacing her tone, “it’s not the ink on my butt that takes the number one spot.”
I wait her out, not willing to say anything that might lead to a subject change. The need to know this piece of her is overwhelming, for a reason I refuse to look at too closely.
She huffs out a laugh under her breath. “You push a hard bargain, Stamos.”
Mina doesn’t even know the half of it. I haven’t gotten to where I am today by sitting on my ass and letting the world run me over. If that was the case, then Stamos Restoration and Co. never would have gotten off the ground. My parents would still be living in that ancient, cramped apartment that I grew up in. Effie wouldn’t have had the money to finish off her last year of college when I came damn near close to emptying my bank account to help my little sister walk across that graduation-day stage, diploma in hand.
Most days, I’m not pushing a hard bargain, I’m the one fucking dealing it.
Finally, Mina speaks—though it’s not at all what I expected. “Patience,” she murmurs, “written in script along the sole of my left foot.”
If anyone else gave me that answer, I wouldn’t think twice about it. But this is Mina, the woman who only just told me that tattoos are a camera reel of one’s life, which means that inking a word like patience on her body carries significant weight. Particularly when Mina’s the very opposite of patient. Impulsive. Reckless. Take-life-by-the-balls-and-go-for-it. That’s her M.O.—always has been. And, like the opening of Pandora’s Box, I’m desperate to discover more.
She slips around me.
I spin on my heel, gently clasping my hands on her arms, and stop her in her tracks. With her back to me and her wrists cuffed by my hands, she glances over her shoulder and quirks a brow.
“Why patience?” I ask.
That brow lifts higher, taunting me. “Why do you suddenly care? Because of one thong sighting?” She tugs on her wrists and I let her escape. For now. “Mine can’t be the only behind you’ve seen, Nick.”
She’s not wrong. I’ve seen others.
For some reason, though, I can’t bring any to mind—not even Brynn’s.
“Tell me.”
Her gaze never deviates from my face. “Because I’ve been waiting my entire life to feel as though I’m finally where I belong. You said that dreams are nothing more than temporary longings, one always leading into the next.” Delicate shoulders square off, like she’s going into battle instead of talking with me, a guy she’s known her entire life. “But I’ve been dreaming of the same thing since I was a kid. So, patience. A constant reminder that no matter how many steps I take in life, no matter where I go, I still only want one thing: to belong.”
My feet might as well be cemented to the sidewalk as Mina follows the curve of the street back up to my family’s house. They’re all probably wondering where we went, and it’s safe to say that there’s no chance of summarizing what happened out here into quaint, simplistic bullet points. No cliff notes that could possibly condense the magnitude of it all into digestible highlight reels.
I nearly kissed Mina.
For the first time in my life, I almost lost control with a woman I shouldn’t even want in the first place. I’ve seen her sick. I’ve seen her cry. I’ve seen her casually flirt with guys at bars on the few times I’ve gone out with her, Effie, and Sarah.
But never, in all these years, have I seen the blatant want that was written in her expression tonight. It matched the need written in my soul, and though that should terrify the hell out of me, it doesn’t.
Mina Pappas is the one woman I shouldn’t crave.
Because I’ve been waiting my entire life to feel as though I’m finally where I belong.
Tonight, for a slip of a moment, a snapshot in time, she belonged with me.
16
Mina
It’s official: Sophia is off her damn rocker.
I plunk my wineglass down on the dinner table. “No.”
“Why not?” With careful, precise movements, she cuts a sliver of steak and pops it into her mouth. Bony elbow planted on the table, she stares at me, her fork dangling from loose fingers. “Do you know how much fun we could have?” Those tines swivel to point in my direction. “Think about it: a few days up on the ski slopes, wine, fires roasting, old friends you haven’t seen in ages. What’s there to say no to?”
A weekend trip to the middle-of-nowhere Maine with Sophia and the other kids from our graduating Greek school class is not my idea of fun. Picking out sinks for my salon? That’s fun. Trimming off a client’s dead ends? Shiver me timbers, someone hand me a pair of shears. Standing outside in the freezing temperatures, Nick Stamos’s mouth inches from mine? Oh so tempting and the most fun I’ve had in ages. But a weekend trip with people I have little in common with aside from our mutual Greek-ness? No, thanks, I’m all good.
“I don’t think so.”
Sophia sets down her fork. “Think of it like a reunion.” She turns to Effie’s mom, determination etched into her expression. “Kyria Stamos, what do you think? This is such a great idea.”
Aleka trades an inscrutable glance with her husband, George, who sits across from her. “Well,” she hedges, one hand coming up to pat her dyed-blonde bouffant, “My daughter is busy, yes?”
“Very busy,” Effie confirms succinctly. She stabs a leafy green on her plate and gives it a swirl in a puddle of vinaigrette. “I’ve got tours all weekend. Man, just so many tours.” With a free hand to her chest, she purses her lips. “If I could cancel them, I would in a second. But we’re unfortunately rain or shine.” A short, noncommittal shrug brings her shoulders up to her ears. “It breaks my heart to tell you that I can’t—”
“Single people.”
Um, what?
We all stare at Sophia, she with the crazy orange hair. I’m beginning to think the personality matches the bad decisions on her head.
Nick’s gravel-pitched voice pierces the silence first. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I thought that, you know, instead of inviting everyone, we could focus on those of us who are still single.” She sends a so-sorry pout at my best friend, and then looks to Sarah, who’s seated beside her wife and looking highly amused. “I mean, you’re married, Effie. And”—Sophia takes a big breath—“since I’m recently divorced, I figured this could be a singles-only trip.” She cuts her attention to me. “Though I didn’t realize you’d be here tonight, Mina. I was actually planning to send you a message online.” The smile she flashes me is so transparently fake that I almost call her on it.
Almost.
Unfortunately for her, she’s now totally solidified my decision. A weekend trip with a bunch of single Greeks—it sounds like a naughty ballad, a bad Greek comedy, or the most epic of shit shows. Possibly all three, even. Since I’m already embroiled in a shit show of my own—hello, Agape—I don’t have the time to consider adding another.
Plus, I’m more of a beach person anyway. If I want to sit in front of a fireplace, I can camp out at my parent’s house on any given night. I’ll be forced to stand vigil for one of my dad’s lectures about my poor life decisions, but at least I can hop in my car and flee whenever I want.
The same can’t be said for up in Maine, where I’ll be hostage to Sophia’s brand of crazy, endless mountains of snow, and shitty cell service.
I shiver at the thought.
“Aleka,” snaps Nick and Effie’s grandmother to her daughter-in-law. She’s sitting diagonal from me, and altogether pretending I don’t exist. In my defense, she rarely pays anyone attention but her grandchildren . . . and her old crony friends. She’s predictable like that—same goes for her wardrobe. Dressed in mourning clothes, Kyria Stamos is a wrinkled, old thing, more bones than skin. Her tongue has always been rapier sharp, proving the old adage false. Her bark is definitely worse than her bite. I reach for my wine as she embarks on a verbal crusade in Greek.