Timo smiles. “Katya has a crush on her porter.”
“No,” Katya says adamantly to Timo. “I would’ve said something. I told you when I had a crush on Teddy—”
“Teddy?” Nik asks.
“A waiter at Imperial,” Timo says, naming an expensive restaurant on the rooftop of the Masquerade.
I frown. “Wait, was this recent?” She never told me.
“A week ago,” she says and shrugs like, we haven’t seen each other much.
I hate that.
Sergei clutches his water. “I still don’t understand the significance of Rachel and your porter.” He returns to the main subject.
I’m just as lost—and worried because she’s hiding something. Her eyes dart around the diner before landing on Nik.
“I was doing a full-in full-out,” she says slowly, “and he was so caught up in butt glue and Rachel that he shifted…well, he moved the beam too far to the left.”
“What?!” we all yell, causing half the diner to flinch and glance at us.
“I recovered!” She raises her hands. “Calm down. One foot reached the bar and slowed my momentum. Then I kind of…”
“You kind of what?” Nik snaps, his anger directed at the porter. Not her.
Katya makes a motion with her hand that looks a lot like a body-flop.
My eyes widen. “Onto the bar?”
“Yeah.”
I sway back, pummeled. I can’t look at her—or anyone. I stare haunted at the table, and Nik starts asking about her ribs. Sergei mentions the hospital for X-rays; AE will pay for it.
“Luk,” she whispers, ignoring Nik and Sergei. “It’s not your fault.”
If I stayed as her porter in Viva, this wouldn’t have happened. I have distractions more weighted than flirting about butt glue, but my personal life has never compromised my work. I’ve been drilled since birth about safety inside the gym and on stage.
It is my fault.
She’s lucky she can even walk—in fact, Nik asks her if she can.
“You saw me walking here,” she says with a tone like you’re being dramatic.
“Do you have a bruise?” I ask my little sister.
“No.”
She’s lying. I can just tell. I’ve known her for too long. Spent too many hours around her at work, at home. “Can you show me?” I ask nicely enough that she lifts up the corner of her purple sweater, knowing Sergei and Nikolai can’t see from behind the table.
I expel a pained breath. Dark yellow and purplish blemishes surround her ribs like marker bleeding into a paper towel. Only it’s her skin. It looks excruciating. She should’ve immediately contacted Corporate, but Nik will be the one to say so.
My eyes lift to hers.
Katya raises her chin like she’s tough, and I remember her saying, I’m a woman. Getting older shouldn’t be about ignoring pain and emotion—but who am I to talk. I’ve shoved mine in drawers.
Nik never cries.
Sergei bottles his feelings.
And Timo will explode all at once.
Performing on stage is the one cathartic release we all share, and maybe it’s too late for some of us to let go off stage, but Kat is still finding herself.
I hug my sister, careful of her ribs, and I whisper in her ear, “I love you, Kat. Tell me next time?”
She sniffs and nods, and I lean back as she rubs her watery eyes.
A half-wall separates us from the casino floor, and Timo must notice someone familiar by the slots because he stands up slightly on the seats. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he starts shouting, “Looking good, Thora James…” His voice teeters off, his face falling.
Something’s wrong with Thora.
Katya and I slide up against the half-wall. Peering over, I spot the short blonde by a slot machine about twenty feet away. Face splotched—crying.
She’s crying hard.
Nikolai sees and his demeanor changes to fierce urgency. Not even waiting for Sergei to let him out of the booth, my brother hurdles the wall and rushes to his girlfriend’s side.
“Do you know what’s wrong?” Sergei asks us, and we all shake our heads and watch.
Because of their noticeable height difference (six-five to five-two), he has to squat down to be eye-level.
From two booths over, I hear a person whisper, “Look, look. See how short she is compared to him?”
“Oh my God—and he’s really built.”
“Imagine them in bed.”
“Ouch. I would not want that inside of me if I were her size.”
I’m irritated, but Nik would kill me if I confronted hotel guests. Nik and Thora deal with worse when we go out. A drunk guy tried to fight Nik by insulting Thora, saying how “stretched out” she must be.
(People are fucking ridiculous.) “I can’t hear Thora,” Katya says. “Can you hear anything?” She looks back at me.
“No.” I see Thora’s lips moving, but her voice is drowned by pinging of slot machines and waitresses yelling food orders to cooks.
Thora sees us and tries to rub her bloodshot eyes—Nik looks back, and then he turns his body to block our view of his girlfriend.
“You think he’ll tell us what’s wrong?” Timo asks.
“No,” I say, knowing Nik likes to keep his personal life private. But it doesn’t always mean it stays that way.
My phone buzzes on the table. Sitting back, I grab my cell before anyone can read the screen.
Out to dinner with my brother, so not tonight. But yeah, let’s meet in the hotel sometime :) – Baylee My lips rise and I type back: I like your smile.
Her next text is quick.
Where’s yours? – Baylee I reply back with five emojis.
They’re all hearts.
A second passes before my phone buzzes again, but when it does, my smile expands.
I love you too. – Baylee “Who’s the girl?” Sergei asks—at first I think he’s talking to Timo or Katya but they’re still watching Nik and Thora.
And his gray eyes are on me.
“What are you talking about?” I pocket my phone.
“The look on your face while you were texting,” he clarifies.
I shrug. “She’s just a girl.” It underscores every ounce of what she means to me, and I feel like I’m betraying her by calling her that—I don’t even know what just a girl is.
Maybe he’s recalling how I stepped forward on stage and held plank beside Baylee first. We all lasted the three hours, thank God. Maybe he’s thinking of how I defended her. How we “did cocaine” in the past.
Maybe he’s about to chew me out.
He wouldn’t be the first or the second or the motherfucking third.
I wait.
I wait for it. (Come on, Sergei. Chastise me, too.) “I’m starting to think,” he says lowly so only I can hear, “that I don’t really understand you.”
I nod slowly.
Too stunned to do anything else.
Sergei looks at Timo and Kat. At Nik and Thora. And I think he’s realizing, for the first time, just how much he truly missed.
Act Twenty-Six Luka Kotova
29 Days to Infini’s Premiere
“Stop! Stop!” our choreographer yells.
Inside the performance gym, I deaden my momentum on the trampoline, Bay on my shoulders. I clutch her legs, and she catches her last ball on its descent.
She can now successfully perform an eight-ball, seven-up pirouette while sitting on my shoulders, so I have no clue why he shut off the music at this spot.
My brother and six cousins come to a full stop on the net, just as perplexed.
Baylee leans her head down to me, and I look up. “Did I screw up?” she asks, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, four balls gripped methodically in her palm. “I didn’t, right?”
“No,” I assure her. “It felt good.”
She nods but starts smiling as my own lips rise. I’d kiss her if I could, and I really don’t want to set her down yet. I run my hands discreetly up her legs, and she unconsciously tightens her thighs around my neck.
I shut my eyes in a tight blink, just for a split-second. My muscles flex, cock aching to harden.