“It’s a promo thing,” Camila says. “The club offers free booze and a Vegas experience. People tell their friends, and then before you know it, we have a full house and I’m swamped at the bar with tips ranging from best night of my life to I want to eat a tub of rocky road.”
“Vegas experience?” John arches his brows. “That’s what we’re calling it now?” He doesn’t see the girl with the basket behind him, or the others pouring shots into my cousins’ mouths.
In one swift move, a girl procures a pink fuzzy handcuff from the basket and clips John’s wrist to Timo’s.
John gapes. “What.” He looks personally affronted, and we’re all laughing. Except for Timo, who’s really trying to avoid Sergei. I think the handcuff situation makes it harder to keep John away from our older brother.
“Natalie,” John says dryly, knowing the basket girl who works here.
She high-fives Camila.
“I hate you all,” John says. “Where’s the key to this fucking atrocity?”
“There’s never any keys,” Camila reminds him. “That’s the whole fun. If you understood that word, this would make more sense to you.”
John cringes. “Whoever came up with this idea is a sadist.”
“Don’t diss my boss. She’s the best.” Camila tosses a dirty towel at John, and he dodges the rag.
Natalie digs in her basket for another handcuff. (Wait, no.) I rise halfway off my stool, but she’s fast. In two movements, she cuffs Sergei to Baylee.
Act Thirty-Five
Luka Kotova
I slowly sink back down, my face frozen in disbelief.
Baylee examines the cuff and tries to pry the metal open. I’m about to lean over and help, but Dimitri purposefully angles his body to cut me off, happily drinking a pint of beer, too.
I shake my head at him and fit my hat backwards again.
Dimitri offers his own beer to me. “Cheer up, buttercup.”
I push the drink to his chest. “I don’t want your beer. I want you to move slightly to the left.”
“Not happening.” He sips from his pint.
I rub my lips once and then press my chest up to the edge of the bar. Trying to peer at Sergei and Baylee again. They’re turned towards each other.
I trust her.
I don’t trust him.
I honestly don’t really even know Sergei. Not beyond work.
“It matches your dress,” he tells her.
I blink a few times, wondering if I heard him right.
(No, don’t tell me my oldest brother is flirting with Bay. This isn’t happening again.)
“What?” Baylee frowns, and he raises his arm, pink cuff attached. It’s the same shade as her sequined dress.
Sergei adds, “Maybe the universe is telling us something that we haven’t figured out yet.”
(No. Just no.)
My eyes narrow at my brother, but he’s so concentrated on Baylee that he hardly notices the rare glare that I burn into his skull.
Baylee leans back from him, but they’re physically connected now. “The universe?” she repeats, skeptical.
“You know, fate.”
He’s oblivious to what I feel for Baylee, and I can’t even be shocked. It’s not even the blue glow necklaces that make us difficult to read. (He’s also, unfortunately, wearing a blue I’m single necklace.) It’s that the dude wouldn’t recognize a connection between anyone if it pressed up against his nose.
“Fate,” she repeats the word with the shake of her head. “I think I’m the universe’s reject. You should attach yourself with someone that has better luck than me.”
I want to reach out and hold her hand.
But I can barely even see her past Dimitri’s body.
She digs in her wrist wallet for something. Maybe to avoid his gaze that stays plastered onto her. Erik passes him a vodka soda, and I watch Sergei take a sip. Still eyeing Bay.
My nose flares, and Baylee glances over at me.
Dimitri side-steps before her gaze meets mine. I turn towards the bar, my face in my hands. I try to stifle a frustrated noise that scratches my throat.
Through the creases of my fingers, I see Camila passing me a shot of tequila.
I slide the shot back. “I didn’t order this.”
She smiles. “Free shots for glum-looking people.”
John interjects, “How long have you had this policy? And why don’t I have a free shot?”
I tune him out, and my muscles bind as Timo and Sergei exchange a look. Timo is trying to tell him: don’t speak to John.
Sergei is confused as ever.
And Timo notices that our brother isn’t registering the hint. I catch him biting his thumbnail to the bed. I rub my face a couple times, wincing. I’m wincing in concern and pain. Look, I have issues, and so does Timo.
(It’s not that big of a secret by now.)
I can practically feel his weighted apprehension crawl up my back like an invisible monster. I hate this feeling. Just as much as he does.
“You’re not glum-looking, cuz,” Camila refutes. “This”—she makes a circular motion at John—“is the face of bitterness.” She gestures to me. “That is the face of heartbreak.” Camila is about to slide my shot back, but John steals the glass.
He downs the liquor in one gulp.
“Heartbreak?” Sergei laughs at me like it’s a joke.
I can’t even fake a smile right now. I glance back for Nikolai in all of this, but he’s speaking to Thora a few feet away. She looks pale, and his features turn grave.
I try not to worry.
(Don’t worry.)
When I rotate to the bar, I notice most eyes uncommonly on me. My muscles flex, and I spin my baseball cap forward so no one can read my expression. “I’m not heartbroken,” I tell anyone who wants to hear.
“Please,” Camila says, “I’m an expert on matters of the heart. I know things.” She winks at Baylee.
I frown. There’s no way Bay told her about us being exes or secretly something more. Camila must just be making assumptions.
John steals a second shot from Camila, his expression sour. “You’ve only been with one person,” he announces, and Dimitri rocks back in shock. “That makes you an expert on Douchebag Dave and that’s it.”
John clearly hates her boyfriend. I wonder if Sergei is comprehending that exchange or if he’s really that bad at subtext.
“Where’s Douchebag Dave?” Dimitri asks. “Is he here? Tonight?” He’s even more intrigued, looking around for this dude.
“His name is Craig,” Camila says, “and no. You’re never meeting him. No Kotova is.”
Dimitri cocks his head. “You’re anti-Kotova?”
(She wouldn’t be the first. Some of us are annoying as fuck.)
“Today I’ve decided I’m anti-drama, which means I’m anti-Kotova. At least for the next half-century.” She forces a smile at a customer at the end of the bar and waves.
“I’ll wait for you, princess.”
Camila actually smiles. I think she’s surprised by her own reaction. Dimitri does well enough with women, but he also ends up with drinks thrown in his face as often as he gets a phone number. Sometimes those are the same girls.
I’m not the cock-blocker.
Bay is.
“Can you get Luka a beer?” she asks Camila.
My lips curve upward.
Dimitri looks at Baylee like she’s causing him erectile distress.
Camila frowns at me. “Do you want a beer? I’m serious about those shots.”
“By far the worst policy I’ve ever heard,” John interjects. “Sad people don’t need more liquor, let alone free liquor. Bitter people, on the other hand, could use some free shots.”
“A beer is perfect,” I say, and I sense Baylee’s burgeoning smile not far from me.
Camila nods, looks between us with a knowing grin, and she searches for a bottle that matches my empty one.
I’d like to say it’s all easygoing from here, but even with house music thumping, a really awkward silence starts stringing across the bar that begins with Kat, John, Timo, Sergei, Baylee, Dimtiri, and me—all in that order. Some of us sitting.
Others standing.
Sergei rotates on the stool and stares past Timo. “You’re John?” Oxygen is vacuumed up. I thought this moment would be uncomfortable. Uneasy. And maybe more awkward than all else.
I didn’t think it’d feel this unpredictable.
Like anything can happen.
Timo lifts his mask to his head, but John already rises from his stool.