“You can’t ask him that,” Baylee says passionately, pretty much pissed off for me.
Geoffrey barely acknowledges her. “I just did. Does it make you upset?” he asks me.
“Yesterday,” I answer his previous question. “And no.”
“What were you thinking about?”
I almost laugh. It’s absurd how much I can’t actually say because of Corporate, which he works for. Irony. I think that term fits here. The answer, of course, is Baylee Wright. I imagined wrapping my arms around her waist and chest from behind. Then I bent her over a bed and pushed into her pussy.
She came instantly.
“Don’t laugh,” Geoffrey says. “Don’t smile. I want severity.”
Severity. “Fine,” I say, suppressing my humor. “But asking me what I jerk off to isn’t exactly serious.”
“You have a sister? Don’t you?” (Welcome to the worst segue in the history of segues.) I’m already feeling overprotective of Katya. I took her to the ER with Nik, and the doctor said if she came down any harder on the beam, she would’ve fractured three ribs. Luckily they were just severely bruised.
Geoffrey snaps, “It’s not a hard question. Do you have a sister?”
I immediately glance at Dimitri—who’s scrutinizing the choreographer with narrowed eyes.
“Don’t look at him. Look at me.”
I obey.
Geoffrey smiles. “There’s a glare.”
If he wants me to glower like I’m seconds from ripping out his large intestines, I can do that, easily. Anger just leads nowhere good. I’ve been the angst-ridden fifteen-year-old banging at Corporate’s brick walls until my fists bloodied. I don’t do that anymore.
“Tell an excruciating moment,” he says, “that involves your sister.”
“No,” I say like someone would say yes. No harshness.
“No?”
“No,” I say just as simply.
His nose is one centimeter from touching mine. (I’m not exaggerating.) “Then I’ll list out various scenarios involving your sister that will bring something out of you.”
I blink a few times, and he studies the way I literally process two aggressively painful situations. I lick my lips and breathe, “Stop.” It slipped.
“I didn’t catch that.”
My nose flares, and I blink rapidly before I rake my fingers through my hair. I’m in control. (Am I in control?) “Lay off of him,” Baylee interjects, trying to side-step around me, but I block her again. “Luka.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
“He’s not?” Geoffrey tilts his head at me, almost challengingly.
“My sister is a minor,” I suddenly inform him.
Geoffrey actually flinches.
(Yeah, fuck off.)
I am compacting too much shit I’m not supposed to say and feel into drawers and (parentheticals) that my heart pounds at an abnormal speed.
“If you’re not willing to participate, then you’re officially out of this act,” he threatens.
“I am participating,” I say. (You just don’t like my responses.) “A story about your sister—”
“I was ten,” I retort, stepping towards him, hands cupped behind my back. Can’t touch him. He’s forced to back up so our noses don’t hit. “In Minnesota for the month. I stole a pair of sunglasses and gave them to my sister. Thought it’d be nice. She wanted a pair. Store clerk saw, called the cops—couldn’t get ahold of Mom and Dad.” I grimace out my feelings. “No matter how many times I told the cops that I stole the sunglasses, they didn’t believe me. They just kept scolding my sister. Who was little and sobbing on the ground.”
“More,” he says.
“What more?” My voice nearly shakes in ire. I think of Baylee and me. How we always search for more—it’s not a feeling you can capture. It’s intangible. Unquantifiable.
I’m not giving him what I can’t even give myself.
“Why do you steal?” he asks.
Not, why did you steal. Why do you steal. As though he knows it’s ongoing. It’s never left. A demon in my drawer.
Rumors. People talk about me. I know.
I’m tense. On edge. But I’m quiet. So quiet that Geoffrey does something—he swiftly steps at me, our noses hitting and he fists my shirt.
(I’m not kidding.)
(I’m still not exaggerating.) I shove him with two forceful palms to his chest, and as he stumbles back, almost tripping on his ass, all four of my cousins swarm me. Yanking me back.
“Stop,” I tell them, my right arm raised. “I’m cool, dude.” Erik is wrestling with my fucking arm for no reason, and Dimitri grips my shirt so tight, the collar digs into my neck.
Here’s the thing: when people think you’re a doormat, they try extra hard to walk all over you. Then they get surprised when you fight back.
Bay knows what it feels like, too. We’re the ones minding our own business in a corner quietly, and then someone comes over and tries to poke at us.
This is what happens.
Every time.
I rip out of my cousins’ protective hold. They’re saving me from being fired, just in case I go at him again.
“Take a break in the locker room,” Sergei suggests, his tone unreadable.
I nod, and on my way out of the gym’s backroom, I hear Geoffrey speak to my brother. “If he’s not willing to be vulnerable and honest in front of nine people, how can I expect him to be in front of three-thousand, twice a night?”
“Was that not vulnerable enough for you?”
“No. He’s still holding back.”
Act Twenty-Seven Luka Kotova
In the locker room, I sit on a bench across from my blue locker, my water bottle in hand. Pretty much alone for a half hour until I hear footsteps around the corner.
Baylee appears, and my lips begin to rise. She leans her hip on a metal locker and digests my smile. “You’re not even a little nervous that I just sought you out at work?”
“No.” I stand and put my water away. “I just figured you snuck off without anyone seeing.”
Baylee straightens up as I near. “I did.” She gestures with her head towards the entrance. “The whole gym is obsessed with celebrity gossip. Thought I’d find you while they’re preoccupied.” She touches her shoe to mine. “See how you’re doing.”
I watch her cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. She’s taking a huge risk being here right now. Sure, we can say it’s for “work” but the Corporate spy is more likely to catch us here than a maid’s closet.
I nod towards the showers.
She relaxes at the suggestion, and I interlace our fingers, leading her deeper into the locker room. We push through a door, and our shoes hit damp tile.
It’s empty. I pass the middle row of sinks and choose the very last shower stall. Whipping open the curtain, we step into the tiny “undressing” area with two ledges to set towels and toiletries. A second curtain conceals the actual shower.
Hidden, we instantly hug. My arms curve around her shoulders, and I pull her as close to my chest as I can. Her arms wrap around my waist, her heartbeat thudding hard against my body.
We sway like we’re dancing.
I breathe deeply and drift back, just enough for her brown eyes, full of empathy and fear, to meet mine. “I’m okay,” I say.
“He’s trying to break you,” she says matter-of-factly, trying not to hurt from it. “It’s awful.”
I cup her cheeks. “He won’t break me.”
Baylee inhales a strong breath and then groans softly in frustration. “I didn’t think he was this malicious.”
My brows jump. “Bay, he forced you to take your shirt off and boxed you into a three-hour plank. What’d you think, he was being nice then?”
Her eyes flit to the curtain before speaking hushed. “His intentions made sense to me. His job is to make Infini more exciting, and high-risk juggling has a wow factor. But singling you out and trying to purposefully incite you because you’re laidback compared to your cousins—what even is that besides cruel?”
I ask because I have to be sure, “The story about my sister, I said it with emotion?”
“Yes,” she whispers adamantly. “More than Sergei’s. It’s almost like Geoffrey thinks you have some sort of magical compartment of pain that you can tap into, and it’ll cause audiences to cry in adoration.”