I raise my brows. “What happened to you?”
“The motherfucking fart-face.” He groans as he stretches his arms towards the ceiling. “New choreographer made the four OGs do burpees for twenty minutes.” OGs—he means the original cast: Zhen, Dimitri, Brenden, and Baylee. “If we slowed down past his ‘required tempo’—which was butt-ass impossible—we had to sprint the length of the gym twenty times.”
It’s not a small gym. It resides in the back lot of the Masquerade with eighty-foot ceilings, big enough to house all the apparatuses for each act.
I start imagining Baylee being pushed by the choreographer, and I tense up. I can’t ask Dimitri how Baylee is. I can’t even ask if she’s okay.
I comb a hand through my hair. Trying not to picturing some new guy screaming at her to “run faster” or “push harder” while she’s already giving her all. I know Baylee. I know that she hates being called out in front of people, for any reason: negative or positive.
“He also told me to bulk down.” Dimitri glares. “I can do what I need to do at this size. I’ve done it for twenty-six years.”
“Did you hear that?” Zhen quips from one row over. “Dimitri Kotova was six-foot-five in the womb.”
Nikolai comes around the bend, rolled bandana wrapped around his forehead. “Did he have enough room in there for a double layout too?” he banters.
The rare time that I see my brother loosen up—it’s with Dimitri or his girlfriend, Thora.
Dimitri hooks an arm around Nikolai’s neck and purposefully wipes his sweat all over him.
I hate to ruin my brother’s good mood. I normally wouldn’t intentionally try, but I have to show him this. “Hey.” I approach both of them.
They break apart. Towering over me.
Nik’s face instantly becomes serious, tapping into his stern big brother side.
I flash them my email. “Okay?” I need them to not intervene if I talk to Baylee.
Dimitri just looks to my brother for how to react.
Nik hardly relaxes. “It’s safer if you try not to talk to her.” His gray eyes never soften.
I knew he’d tell me to stay responsible and be serious about what this means, but I’m not floating in some fantasy. I understand my fucked-up reality better than him. I’m the one living it.
“I just wanted you to know,” I say easily and return to my locker, zipping my phone in my bag. When I pass them to leave the room, Nik clasps my shoulder.
I wait for him to say something.
He struggles to speak. To say what he feels. Lowly, almost beneath his breath, he tells me, “Don’t hang yourself with the slack you’ve been given.”
“I won’t.”
“I know you, Luk.” He pauses. “I know that if someone gives you an inch, you’ll go five feet.”
“I won’t.” It’s all I can tell him. If he doesn’t believe me, then he doesn’t believe me. There’s not much else I can do. So I add, “I’m not a kid.”
“I know that.” He releases his clutch on me.
I don’t let Nikolai trounce the fraction of good news. I pocket it. I carry it, and what should be happiness transforms into apprehension. Concern.
What do I even say?
Will she even want to speak to me?
Does she even like me anymore?
Act Nine
Luka Kotova
The gym is crammed, and it’s not a typical gymnastics gymnasium. In the middle, Amour artists practice on a giant, intricate metal cube, teeterboard placed precariously beneath.
Timo effortlessly sprints across the metal rung that looks like adult jungle-gym bars. With a magnetic grin that ropes my gaze, he drops straight down.
And he grabs hold of a lower rung before hoisting his body into a handstand.
As I pass, it takes me a while to tear my attention off my brother. Other artists definitely have that issue, too. Staring. Gawking.
Wondering how the hell Timofei Kotova is so enthralling.
I pass another aerial apparatus. Scarlet silk is attached to the eighty-foot ceiling, and Nikolai clutches the fabric. His much shorter girlfriend already slices through the air, the silk intricately wound around her ankle.
Over in the far left, a trapeze is set up for Viva artists, mesh net secured underneath, and then I spot Kat towards one of the walls.
The Russian bar sits off to the side with our cousin Vitaly and a new guy who replaced my role in Viva. I used to be one of Katya’s porters. I held one end of a bar similar to a balance beam while she performed a difficult routine on top.
What I love and miss most is working with my sister.
I notice that she hasn’t started practicing yet. I don’t have time to chat, but I call out, “Kat!” I already begin to wave before she turns her head.
I frown.
Is she wearing…? She is.
Kat wears pink lipstick, bright and overdrawn, and her black mascara and thick eyeliner darkens her eyes. I almost question whether it’s stage makeup since it looks cartoonish, but no one else is wearing any. It has to be her choice. Still, she’s never worn makeup at practice before.
That’s not all.
She’s dressed in a tiny sports bra and spandex. No shirt. My frown deepens. There’s no way Nik saw her leave the suite.
Katya waves back like nothing’s different.
“Fuck—” I walk straight into Brenden’s drenched back, his shirt soaked through with sweat.
He shoots me a glare but says, “Zhen’s leading the cast in stretching.”
I nod, as tense as him. I try to push Katya out of my mind and take a seat on the blue mats. All fifty of us are situated in a jagged circle. A few cousins are between me and Sergei.
Zhen spreads his legs open and reaches forward.
We all follow suit, but I lift my head up.
Baylee.
She’s directly across from me, only the empty middle of the circle separating us. I sweep her features more rapidly than I want or intend. More used to dodging her than staring.
Black spandex pants and a lime-green tank suction the slight curves of her body. Four thick but tight braids swoop down her head and are tied into a bun at her warm brown neck. Pretty and sporty. I remember she always used to wear this hairstyle for practices.
She tries to rub her damp forehead with her shoulder. Looking fatigued but still upright, she uses the short break to take it easy.
She’s okay.
She’s not hurt from being run-hard by the choreographer. I relax some, and as she leans into the stretch, her eyes slowly close in rest.
My lips begin to lift.
Baylee is confident and reserved. Quiet and passionate. I see all of what I remember.
She has an oval face that I loved holding between my hands. Rosewood-pink lips that I loved kissing. Thin yet strong arms that I used to intertwine with my brawn—and wide, curved hips that used to be beneath my straight.
She’s undeniably beautiful. The kind of beauty that chokes me up, and I don’t know how the whole world doesn’t see what I see—how I’m not fighting every fucking person on the planet for the chance to even speak to her.
Way back when, I’d hold her tight in bed and tuck her firmly against my chest—she’d fall asleep in my clutch. And I’d stare out the window, right into the New York City landscape, and I thought this is what I want forever.
I want this and her.
Dreams.
They’re fucking cruel.
Zhen reaches for his right leg. We all follow.
I keep staring. More than I would ever dare—all because of the email. Granting me extra room to move in a prison cell without windows. Without a door.
I notice Brenden sitting protectively next to Baylee, and just as he changes stretching positions, he catches me ogling his sister.
I absorb the threat in his eyes. He keeps glaring. Waiting for me to look away. But detaching is harder than I thought.
We all press our legs together, touching our toes, and Baylee turns her head a fraction. Enough to spy her brother’s contempt. She follows the path of his piercing glare.
To me.
Her collarbones jut out in a strained breath, and she shakes her head at me like, what are you doing?
She hasn’t read the email.