Hard to Hold (True Romance) (13 page)

But as they were still surfing on the crests of fresh and as-of-yet unexplored attraction, the thrill of catching a glimpse of him while he walked Sirus to the park or chatting on the phone until the wee hours even though they were only one floor away would eventually wear off.

And she couldn’t think of a single thing that could take the shine off a new relationship faster than a trip to the discount store.

“Ready?”

She turned, laughing when she caught sight of him. He was wearing a long sleeved navy T-shirt with a humongous orange Syracuse “S” emblazoned on the front. Taking into consideration their plans for the night, this was not unusual. What struck her as hilarious was that she was wearing exactly the same shirt.

“You’ve got good taste,” he said, plucking at her sleeve.

“We’re going to look like dweebs if we go to the store dressed like bookends,” Anne insisted. “Go change.”

He barked with laughter. “You change. I like my shirt.”

She groaned with frustration, grabbed Michael by the hand, and dragged him, willingly, out to her car. Scowling at him had the absolute opposite effect that it would have had, say, on her brother. Anne had been famous in her youth for her powerfully persuasive dirty looks. Whenever she cast an annoyed glare at Michael, however, his smile only deepened.

“Did you read what the sports page had to say about Coach Boeheim and his reliance on the McNamara for the offensive game?” he asked as soon as she’d pulled out onto State.

“The sports writer for the
Daily Journal
hasn’t seen a live basketball game since Dave Bing played for the Pistons,” Anne replied. “This team has chops. If they can get in the zone, this game’s going to be a blowout and we’ll be going to the championships.”

Michael shook his head. “I don’t know. In the last game, we were 3–for–10 on free throws in the first half and finished the game twenty points down. That kind of performance isn’t going to get us into the Sweet 16.”

For the duration of the drive, they talked stats and projections. Anne couldn’t help but appreciate a man who could talk sports to a woman and not assume she couldn’t match his knowledge on the subject. They argued over the coach’s strategy in the last game and the behavior of an opposing point guard after he was fouled by an overzealous Orangeman, but the conversation quickened the drive and made the traffic seem less congested. By the time they entered the store and dislodged a cart from the cage-like train by the front door, they’d moved on to discussing Mike’s projections for tonight’s battle with Notre Dame after giving each other a quick run down of what they each needed from the store.

Anne left out any details regarding feminine hygiene products.

“Why don’t we split up? I’ll run over to the pharmacy side while you pick up that present for your niece.”

“You don’t want to go to the toy section?” he asked with exaggerated shock. “Come on! What’s the point of having nieces and nephews if you can’t use it as an excuse to check out the latest from Hasbro and Mattel?”

She couldn’t resist. Rolling her eyes, she followed Mike to the back of the store where he pretended to be blinded by the overwhelming wash of pink in the Barbie aisle. He spent an inordinate amount of time scanning the Hot Wheels cars for any he didn’t already have and then dragged her into the Star Wars collection so he could regale her with his best James Earl Jones imitation by repeating, “Luke, I am your father” until her stomach cramped from laughing.

She coaxed him into buying his niece a cool arts-and-crafts kit that would allow her to paint and bedazzle her own jewelry box. They were about to head to the adult sections of the store when he caught sight of a wire cage filled with inflated balls. Bearing the likenesses of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow from
Pirates of the Caribbean
and bright red Elmos, the balls proved irresistible. Before she could stop him, he’d squeezed one out of the bin and was dribbling up the aisle as if he were channeling Eric Devendorf, one of Syracuse’s best players.

“You’re open,” he shouted, tossing the ball to Anne.

She caught it out of instinct, but hesitated to play this game. Not that anyone was around. The toy section was relatively deserted. And since not a single red-shirted employee was milling about, there really wasn’t any harm in joining his fantasy.

So she dribbled. She traveled a little on her way toward him, but feinted adequately and then threw the ball high into the air so that it arced right back into the bin.

“Three pointer for sure!” she shouted.

“There was a foul in there somewhere,” he insisted.

“Want a free throw?”

“Most definitely.”

Anne watched Mike grab another ball out of the bin and then back up a sufficient distance so that landing the shot would not be an easy feat, particularly since the balls weighed considerably less than a standard basketball. She’d simply made a lucky shot.

But with the shot, so sunk the memory of her absolutely horrendous week. Mike’s infectious silliness had helped her shed the layer of discontent she hadn’t realized she was wearing.

They declared the game a draw after a mother flanked by twin boys turned the corner into their makeshift court. On the way to the pharmacy, Mike slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek.

“Glad I came along now?” he asked.

She blushed. Had her reluctance to invite him along been obvious?

“It wasn’t personal. I just wasn’t hyped up about having the guy I’m dating see me buy toilet paper, among other things.”

He squeezed her waist and said, “Well, I can use new boxers, so we’ll be even.”

That they were,
she couldn’t help but think as they progressed into the men’s section.

Even.

Balanced.

Yin and yang.

And as much as the idea thrilled her, it also scared her. Because if things didn’t work out, the loss would be greater than any other she’d ever experienced. And if they made it, her life would be forever changed.

Eleven

“
P
ARDON ME, BUT IS THIS SEAT TAKEN
?”

Anne barely glanced up, engrossed in reading information on the tour’s next stop. She lifted her bag off the chair beside her and gave what she hoped was a polite nod to whomever needed a place to sit.

The cool Egyptian air blew across the Nile, ruffling the guide book her friend, Adele, had bought. Anne had been to the Middle East many times, but this was her first trip to Egypt and she wanted to make sure she didn’t miss anything. As Adele had gone downstairs to their cruise-ship cabin to grab sweaters for them both, Anne leaned back into her deck chair, closed her eyes, relaxed . . . and tried not to think about Michael.

Before she’d met him at the Jeff Tweedy concert and long before they’d become joined at the proverbial hip, she and Adele had planned a spring trip. A friend from her yoga class at the Y, Adele lived only a block from Anne’s place on State Street and shared her love of international travel. After twisting their bodies into proverbial pretzels for an hour, they’d grab a smoothie at a nearby juice bar and chit-chatted about all the places they’d been and where they still wanted to go. When Anne had gotten a call from the local chapter of the United Jewish Federation asking her to attend a conference in Tel Aviv, she’d jumped at the chance. And since the dates coincided with her vacation with Adele, they’d included Egypt in their itinerary, highlighted by this amazing cruise from Aswan to Luxor.

The hardest part had been leaving Michael—and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

In her entire life, she couldn’t remember
ever
second-guessing plans for a vacation on account of a guy. Michael had encouraged her to enjoy the trip, even sitting side-by-side with her on the couch with his laptop to research her itineraries and stops. And yet, as each day until her departure ticked away, a piece of her heart seemed to tear off as well.

And that, more than anything, frightened her.

Michael had told her about his most painful breakup—the one that had resulted in his adopting Sirus. At the time, she’d been glad she didn’t have a similar story. No dashed expectations or broken hearts in her past. Well, not like his, anyway.

Her relationships had often ended before they began. More often than not, she’d fall head over heels for some great guy who, in the end, just wanted to be friends. The last thing she wanted with Michael was a replay of that scenario. From the get-go, the mutual attraction between them crackled. They shared a love of music, sports, their apartment building, and various ethnic foods. Both career-minded and family-oriented, Michael was everything Anne could have wished for.

Except . . .

Maybe he’d been a little too supportive of her tour of the Middle East. He also hadn’t been in touch much. Yes, he’d answered her e-mails and texts, but not with his usual silliness or cleverness. He’d been a bit terse. Almost cold.

“So, do you feel like Cleopatra?”

Anne turned to the man who’d spoken. She blinked a few times, trying to remember when he’d sat on the deck chair beside her.

“I’m sorry?” she asked, wanting to make sure that he had, indeed, been speaking to her.

“Cleopatra? You know, the queen known around the world as the tempting seductress who sailed down the Nile on her barge?”

Anne closed her book. “Wow, that’s the best pickup line you’ve got?”

He rolled his eyes at his own corniness. “I’m trying to flirt in a foreign language. It’s no easy feat. My name is Samir Moadab. You may call me Sam.”

He pointed to his nametag, which identified him as one of the tour guides assigned to the cruise. She placed his accent immediately as native, though the country of origin listed on his tag read
Madrid
.

She shouldn’t have noticed that much, but Sam was a hard guy to ignore. His fathomless black eyes, set against skin tinted to a rich burnt umber by generations of his ancestors living life in the desert sun, locked with hers, and his smile, just one curve shy of cocky, accentuated his square jawline. Sam was a hunk.

And Anne wasn’t interested.

This fact, more than his physical perfection, nearly knocked the wind out of her. Before Michael, she would have at least been flattered by his attention. Before Michael, she might have flirted with him just for the fun of it.

But now, all she felt was a nagging guilt for talking to him, even though Michael was thousands of miles away and possibly losing interest in her the longer she was gone.

Well, she couldn’t be pathetic about it. She had a very good-looking guy going out of his way to flirt with her. She had nothing to lose by being friendly.

“Anne Miller,” she said, taking his proffered hand.

“Like the American Broadway star,” he said.

She sat back, surprised. She hadn’t heard a statement like that from anyone younger than her grandmother in years. “You know Anne Miller?”

“My mother loves American cinema and theater. When I went to Columbia for university, she wanted me to hang out on Broadway so I could meet the great stars. I didn’t have the heart to remind her that few of them are still alive.”

“Hm,” she said, trying to quell any sound of how impressed she was. “Columbia?”

His educational pedigree, which she soon learned started with a degree in public relations from the University of Madrid and continued with graduate studies at both Columbia and Oxford, solidified her decision to keep talking to him. She couldn’t help but wonder how a man with his background ended up as a tour guide on a Nile cruise. And if he happened to give her a few hints about great places to visit while here, so much the better.

“Academics do not exactly, what is the term, bring home the bacon? My sister works as a tour guide and she does very well financially, so since I have some very important things to save up for, I thought I’d spend my break making some extra money.”

“Extra money is always good,” she agreed.

She scanned the deck, wondering what was taking Adele so long. Not that she didn’t find Samir interesting. She did. And that alone made her insides wriggle.

“So what brings you to Egypt?” he asked.

She smiled and with no sign of Adele coming up the stairs, she replied simply, “I love to travel.”

“Do you often?”

“I used to,” she said. “My job now keeps me pretty tied to one place.”

She explained about her career as a journalist and her invitation to attend the Tel Aviv conference for the UJF. Sam not only listened intently, but he asked compelling questions and imparted his opinions on matters ranging from journalistic integrity to his recent adventure navigating the
Mahene Yehudah
market in Jerusalem.

“There’s one place, called Marzipan, that you have to try,” he insisted, leaning onto his elbows so that his face was quite close to hers. “The best chocolate rugelach you’ve ever had. You will be— excuse the term, but it’s the only one that fits—orgasmic with delight.”

Adele finally came back with the sweaters, her timing exquisite as a chill had raced down Anne’s spine. She made quick introductions, hoping that Samir would now turn his attention to her rather adorable—and single—friend. His greeting didn’t fall down in the charming department, but in seconds, he’d zeroed back in on Anne.