Kat and Timo offer a lot of love if you’re on their side. To be against them, it’d be a fucking nightmare. I can’t imagine it. Nik can probably relate more, but I’d hate for that to be me.
“They’ll come around,” I end up saying, wrapping him up in a fantasy. I like making people feel good, and the truth is cold. It could take them years to accept Sergei into their lives. It’ll take me less, even if he agitates me. Even if I can’t stand to be around him or listen to his voice.
I’ll be cool with him in a couple months. I already know this about myself.
I already feel it happening.
Sergei exhales. “I hope so.”
I suck on a peppermint. “Why are you telling me this anyway?”
His gray eyes, identical to mine, flit to me again. “Nik told me ‘while everyone loves Timo, Luka loves everyone else.’ I thought you’d care.”
What shocks me more: that Nikolai knows me this well or that Sergei looks to me to help bridge the divide in our family?
I’m all out of answers.
*
Sergei and I walk down the single aisle of red vinyl booths and a bar counter with retro stools. The diner is small and open-faced to the casino floor, so I easily spot my family in the back. And chances are, they’ve already spotted us.
Timo slides out of a circular corner booth, his effervescent grin on me. He used blue glitter to line the bottom of his eyes, and he pinned a tiny disco ball to his leather jacket. “We waited for you to order food,” he says as I greet him with a hug.
“Thanks, dude.” I slide in next to Kat.
She scoots a glass-bottled soda to me. “We got you a Fizz.”
I reach into my pocket and slyly hand her a packet of Starbursts. (Yeah, I have to do this beneath the table like it’s a drug deal. Nik lectures me every time I supply her candy because she’s prone to cavities.) Timo takes a seat beside me—all without acknowledging Sergei, who loiters uncomfortably. An awkward second ticks by before he slips into the booth next to Nik. Knowing how much Sergei wants to mend things, I almost feel badly by the cold-shoulders.
Nik clears his throat, his terrible attempt at breaking the tension. “I ordered you water,” he tells Sergei.
In Russian, he replies, “Thank you.”
Now that they’re side-by-side, I realize Sergei looks young: clean-shaven, hair short. In contrast, Nikolai appears older: unshaven jaw, dark hair long enough to curl around his ears. Nik also sits like he has a stick up his ass.
I smile. It’s just who he is. Twenty-six going on seventy-five. Life aged him—we aged him. My lips falter, and I take a swig of Fizz and check my cell.
I miss Baylee.
With fire being added to her juggling act, the tempo change in mine, and Infini’s premiere in sight, we haven’t had time to see each other outside of the Masquerade. Not since Two Kings. We would be with each other more if we snuck around somewhere in the hotel, but it’s clearly more dangerous.
Which is why I asked her in text: you up for meeting in the hotel, krasavitsa?
It’s her choice, but it’s been a few hours and she still hasn’t replied.
I push the thoughts back.
Timo hums a song and taps his drink. He beams at me, and I drum the table to the tune. Kat clinks my bottle with a fork— “Stop,” Nik says.
Timo sing-songs, “Someone sucks the fun out of everyone.”
I laugh with Kat, but the humor ends when Timo expels a resigned breath, giving into Nik’s request.
“What are we supposed to talk about?” Timo asks. “The weather?” He leans forward. “I heard it’s nighttime.” He wears real enthusiasm. “Such a revelation. Night.”
Sergei rolls his eyes.
“You don’t like the night?” Timo asks, his grin turning bitter. “That’s too bad.”
“Why?” Sergei says
Timo swings his head to me. “I own the night.”
Smiling, I put my arm around his shoulder and nod to him. “From two to five a.m.”
“Damn right.” He mimes grabbing a star from the sky.
We all laugh, except for Nik and Sergei, and thick silence returns even faster. I drop my arm off my little brother, and Sergei eyes me like help me out, man.
He hasn’t given me a reason to help him, and yet, I’m going to. “Have you met John yet?” I ask Sergei. Instantly, I regret it.
Timo rocks backwards like I sucker-punched him. I hold my breath, my muscles flexed, hurting just as much. I shake my head at Timo and mouth, what?
“Who’s John?” Sergei asks.
Timo shoots me a pointed look like that’s what. I didn’t know he hasn’t even mentioned John Ruiz to Sergei.
Nikolai explains, “Timo’s boyfriend.”
Sergei looks confused at Timo. “Why didn’t you tell me that you have a boyfriend?”
“Thanks, Luka,” Timo says, upset.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Sergei sets his arms on the table, inching closer. “What am I missing here?” Silence. “I already know you’re gay, Timo. When you were a little kid, you asked me to help you come out to the family. We baked a cake and had a party. Don’t you remember?”
Timo nods, eyes glassing. “I remember.” He produces a pained smile. “I also remember being devastated when I thought you were forced on a touring show. Because you”—he points at Sergei and takes a short breath—“you meant everything to me.”
I look down.
Timo confided in Sergei the way I’d guess most sons would confide in fathers. In New York, my little brother used to tell me, I wish the company picked Sergei instead of Nikolai to live with us. He believed Nik hated being our guardian—mostly, I think Timo imagined Sergei would’ve loved it more.
But Nikolai was the one who chose us. And Nik never wanted Sergei and Peter to be viewed as villains in our eyes, so he kept this fact hidden until it came out on its own.
It’s why I undeniably love Nik. I respect him more than I respect any other man on this planet. If he needs me to help, I’ll be there. No matter where there is.
Sergei leans back, submerging his emotion. “I was twenty-two. I chose my career.”
Timo’s face twists. “If I was given the choice to leave for higher pay or to stay here—I’d choose to stay with my brothers and sister.”
“I wasn’t alone. Peter left too.”
“Peter who?” Timo says. Pretending to forget our twenty-four-year-old brother.
Nik puts a hand to his face, one second from groaning. He sees the fast decline of this conversation like I do.
“You can’t resent me forever,” Sergei says, almost pleadingly.
Timo stares sadly at Sergei. “I don’t resent you. I’m just giving you exactly what you chose. Your career. Not me, not my life. And John Ruiz is the biggest part of my world.”
The waitress steps in at this, and we tensely order from the menu. I pick something called the kitchen sink: a double cheeseburger, fried egg, bacon, tomato, onion, and green pepper. I’m also given a disapproving glare from both of my older brothers.
As soon as the waitress leaves, Sergei says to me, “You have practice tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah,” I say casually, “I’m aware of my schedule.”
Nikolai pinches his eyes and whispers to Sergei in Russian, but I can’t hear. I wonder if he’s saying something like: see what I’ve been having to deal with.
Guilt knots my stomach. “I’m twenty,” I say easily. “Please, back off.”
No one says a thing, and the tension only strengthens. Everyone is looking at me.
“I’m fine,” I tell them. “I have everything under control.” I flip my cellphone in my hand and comb a hand through my hair.
Nikolai veers onto Katya. “How’s your new porter?” (He means the dude that replaced me in the Russian bar act for Viva.) Katya sips her pint of root beer.
Nik stares darkly and disapprovingly. “We talked about this, Katya. You said you’d make an effort.”
“I said that I’d be nice. I’m nice.”
He snaps in Russian, “You’re being rude.”
Katya sighs, and her eyes soften on Sergei but she speaks to the whole table. “My new porter is infatuated with Rachel Bevens, the Olympic-gymnast-turned-trapeze-artist—you know her?”
We all nod.
She twirls her straw. “He ogled her from halfway across the gym, and then they started talking, which was more like shouting, about butt glue of all things.”
Nik’s features darken. “What is this about?”