And I can’t deny that I’ve always enjoyed watching her scramble for things to say that might, finally, shock me.
Settling in, I cock my head and steadily meet her gaze. Round one, here we go. “What’re my chances that my yiayia is gonna take one look at you tonight and declare you as the next bride-to-be?”
She visibly stumbles on nothing but air, her hand going to the metal balustrade that lines the walls of the elevator. “She’s out of luck.” Mina’s voice comes out raspy, like she’s swallowed a bundle of surprised nerves. “I’m already taken.”
I might as well be ass-over-head, landing right into a pile of sawdust at a jobsite. Disbelief suctions my feet to the ground like magnets to a refrigerator. No way. Hell would actually freeze over if Mina did anything more than casually see a guy.
Like I said, she’s been on my periphery since forever. I spent most of my junior and senior years of high school watching out for her, at my sister’s urging. “She gets bullied a lot, Nick. Just make sure everything is gravy, would you?”
Even if things aren’t gravy, Mina never lets down her walls.
Except that one time on the night of her prom—which, even then, lasted no more than the seconds required to shore up my reserve and step away from the danger zone. Crossing that forbidden boundary with my sister’s best friend just isn’t gonna happen.
I squint down at her and try to read her expression. For once, her honey eyes tell me nothing, leaving me to stand out in the cold. Well, damn. Is she . . . bluffing me? “Effie didn’t mention you were seeing anyone.”
Mina’s vampy, dark-painted lips twitch into a dreamy smile as she sways back and links her arms over her chest. “He’s amazing. So giving.”
I cock a brow and opt to wait out whatever ace she thinks she’s got up her sleeve.
I’ll give her that. Mina’s always been particularly good at planting the seed and letting the tangled web she weaves give her the upper hand. Trouble, my grandmother always said, That one is trouble. Most of the Greek community here in Boston agrees, for one reason or another. It’s not an opinion that I share. She may be reckless, but Mina is also one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met.
Not that I’d give her any ammunition by telling her that.
“Austere, really,” she goes on, her tone light as a feather and with her eyes still fluttered shut. Her makeup today is smoky, bronze highlighted with gold, and it’s in that moment when I realize her crazy pink hair is long gone. Strands as black as a cloudy night sky curl over her collarbones, the tips brushing the upper swells of her breasts.
I jerk my gaze up, just in time to hear her add, “He’s so cold, but sometimes, in the early mornings when the light filters in through the windows, I can tell he’ll be something a little more one day. Not just a money-hogging jerk that’s like a noose around my neck.”
Like a noose around—
Game over.
My lips compress into a flat line. “Ermione”—her name rips from my chest in warning—“if he so much as touches you, I’ll—”
Her honey eyes pop open, and the flare of humor that I see there has my chest deflating with relief. The relief is short-lived. She’s busting my balls. Again. Round two goes to you—bravo.
“You’ll what?” she pushes, as the elevator dings our arrival on the fifth floor. The doors crack open, but before I can even think to escape, Mina hops around me and smacks one of the buttons.
The elevator hiccups, doors jerking back shut, and the pressure beneath my feet increases as we ascend to the next floor.
“Ermione.”
With her back to the row of buttons, she kicks one foot up on the wall behind her, the heel of her shoe clinking as it meets metal. “Oops.” Her mouth purses as her brows go hairline high. “Wrong button.”
I’m going to kill her.
I haven’t even been back in Massachusetts for more than two weeks and already I’m going to find myself trading in my work boots for an orange jumpsuit and a cell mate named Bend Over.
My voice sounds like gravel-infused-with-nails when I finally find the words past the sudden frustration swirling in my brain. The idea of her dating a man who might put his hands on her—Jesus. I scrub a hand over my jaw, then shoot her a pointed glare. “No more games.”
“Not a game,” she replies, all honeyed, cajoling tone, “I need to talk with you . . . in private.” She gestures toward the elevator like she’s found us the perfect location for a little rendezvous.
The last time we “talked” we ended up sharing a hotel bed for the night, drunk off our asses, while my grandmother busted in the door and promptly told the entire family that Ermione Pappas had seduced me.
There’d been no seduction of any kind.
Only too much booze, hours’ worth of I Love Lucy re-runs, and—on my part—a reluctance to face the music: that I was dumped at the altar. I slept in my tux, fully clothed, with my bow tie still locked around my throat like a noose.
Like a noose.
Dammit.
I rub the back of my neck, then try to smother the urge to demand answers. She is not my business, I remind myself. But the damn words worm their way out anyway when I blurt, “Are you seeing anyone whose ass I need to beat down for treating you wrong?”
Her nostrils flare, a little tell that infuses curiosity through my veins, before she’s shaking her head. “It’s sweet that you care, but no. It was just a joke, a stupid metaphor for my professional life. I’m not seeing anyone—” Ping. She reaches behind her and presses another button without looking to see which one.
Impulsive.
If someone were to ask me one word to describe my sister’s best friend, it would be that: impulsive. Her spontaneous nature would be admirable if it also weren’t so ridiculously frustrating.
“You want to talk?” I wave one hand toward her. “Then talk.”
She sniffs at my command, dimpled chin tipping up in defiance. “Being polite wouldn’t kill you, you know. A girl likes a bit of sugar when she’s spoken to.” Honey eyes narrow pointedly, and I already know her brain is spinning, chugging round and round like a hamster on a wheel. “Then again, sugar isn’t exactly your . . . speed.”
I’m going to regret asking what she means.
Hell, I tend to regret a lot of things when it comes to Mina—the woman gets under my skin like no one else, needling me, endlessly frustrating me—but this . . . I already know I’m not going to like her answer.
“What exactly is my speed?”
She nibbles on her bottom lip, her white teeth a sharp contrast to the plum-colored lipstick. Ping! Her fingers find another button, giving us more time for our private “talk,” and my heart feels suspended in mid-air as we change directions and zoom down, down, down.
“Romantic strolls on the beach.”
Guilty as charged, thanks to a week spent visiting the Australian coast for Put A Ring On It. In my pocket, I crack my knuckles, one by one, buying myself time to think out the best way to answer.
I’m not given the opportunity.
“Getting individual bags of popcorn for a date at the theater,” Mina throws out a heartbeat later, like the prospect alone is offensive and a complete turn-off.
My jaw clenches. “There’s nothing wrong with two bags of popcorn. It’s easier that way.”
“It’s safe. And predictable, like the romantic strolls, which means both options feel very you. Plus, the point of sharing a bag is to battle it out for the last kernel and let your fingers brush and your hands tango it up.”
I shift my weight, sneaking one hand up to tug at my tie. Unless she cornered me in this elevator to list out all my faults, in which we’ll be here all night until security kicks us out, I’ve got a feeling she’s deflecting. Even knowing Mina as I do, and knowing that she’s scrambling to keep a hold on whatever nerves are eating her alive, I can’t help but think back to Savannah Rose.
We were too similar to work.
Too set in our ways.
Predictable. Safe. Rigid. All things the woman in front of me snubs her nose at, preferring adventure and new experiences to stability and the familiar. Mina has me all riled up, so much so that I’m aware of the short rise and fall of my chest, and the low ringing in my ears. Maybe it’s because she’s telling you the truth—you’re uninteresting.
Instead of doing the smart thing, the mature thing, and calling her out for procrastinating with this private talk of hers, I cave. Hard.
“I don’t like to dance,” I mutter, hands back in my pockets.
Mina leans forward, her dark hair falling forward in big ringlets, caressing the tops of her breasts again, and taps me on the chest. “It’s called foreplay, Nick. Not all women are in it for the pump-once-and-quit-it bedtime activities.”
Gamóto, I feel like I’m choking.
Does she think . . . There’s no way she could possibly think that I . . .
“I pump more than—”
I cut off the second Mina folds over at the waist, laughter creasing her cheeks and screwing her eyes shut. “Oh, Nick,” she whispers out between gusts of laughter, “your face when you . . . oh, my God, I can’t. I’m dying.”
Heat warms my cheeks and the tops of my ears.
When faced with Mina’s enthusiasm and crazy sense of humor, I almost regret walking away from the calm that is Savannah Rose. Almost, but not quite.
Pushing off the wall, I bump Mina out of the way with a hip-check and jab the button for the closest floor. The elevator skids to a stop, and I’m half expecting hotel security to be waiting to cart the two of us away when the doors swing open.
Thankfully, the third floor is blessedly empty.
“Nick?” comes Mina’s inquisitive voice behind me. “Wedding is on the fifth floor.”
The sole of my shoe connects with the maroon carpet, and I swallow a sigh of relief to be back on solid ground. Glancing at my sister’s best friend over my shoulder, I meet her hopeful gaze. Don’t fall for it, man. She had her chance to talk. It’s not my problem if she wasted it by playing verbal volleyball. “I’m taking the stairs.”