“Where’s home for you?” he asks, punching the number 42. The elevator groans before rising. He already swiped his hotel keycard into a slit above the buttons, reserved for AE artists. Luxury suites, a perk that not many hotels offer performers.
It takes me a minute to process this question and reject my worries. “Cincinnati.” I don’t mention Ohio State in Columbus. I wore a collegiate shirt that first night at The Red Death, and he’s observant enough to put two-and-two together. “What about you?”
He pockets his keycard. “My home is the circus.”
“Timo said he was born in Munich,” I remember.
Nikolai stiffens at the mention of his brother. I forgot that they had a small fight tonight. I internally grimace.
Way to go.
But he alleviates any awkwardness by saying, “My mother traveled with the circus, even pregnant. Where it went, she went. Moving around is all I really know.” He rests his shoulders against the elevator wall. “Of all my siblings, Timo was the only one born outside the United States. And he likes to tote that fact around like a prize.”
I try to absorb these facts and let them distract me from my swirling thoughts. Tampons. It’s truly sad, but I can’t stop wishing I had a beautiful pink box of them. Actually, any color box. I’m not picky. I’d even take the giant, uncomfortable cardboard applicator kind.
“You’re nervous,” he points out. I really wish he wasn’t so good at reading body language. I must be standing with my arms glued to my sides.
“I’m not,” I refute, trying to loosen my limbs. I end up cracking my knuckles which sounds violent.
He snaps off his red glow necklace. “And you’re a bad liar.”
“I just…I don’t have my bag.” There. I let it out. Now I feel…not any better. Fantastic.
“I probably have everything you need.”
I snort, on accident. I cover my face with my hand. A serious face-palm. I’m feeling a lot lamer than usual. I mean, I know I’m half-lame most of the time, with flat comebacks and unintentional demonic glares. But I’m reaching new levels.
“A toothbrush,” he guesses, playing into it like a game. I peek at him through my fingers and realize he’s smiling. “I have an extra one, never used.”
“That’s…convenient.”
“One of my brothers is a kleptomaniac and likes to steal pointless things from the gift store.” He adds quickly, “Don’t tell anyone I said that.”
“Timo?” I wonder.
“Luka. He’s nineteen and another pain in my ass.” Even as he says it, there’s an incredible amount of love in his voice.
The elevator makes a stop on the twentieth floor. I expect more people to gather on, but it’s empty, just delaying our ride.
“Pajamas,” he guesses.
I didn’t even think about that. My suitcase will never know how much I miss it. “I’m going to sleep in what I have on.” I immobilize for the thousandth time as he inspects my long coat and stilettos again. Probably imagining what little there is underneath. The corset wire is definitely poking into my boob.
“You can sleep in one of my shirts,” he offers, not as a sexual advance or anything. I think it’s a friendly gesture. But then those gray irises inadvertently tear through my defenses and practically shed my clothes—I can’t tell anymore. That’s not a look you give to a friend.
“Thanks,” I manage to say, zeroing in on the fact that I’ve only worn one guy’s shirt before: Shay’s.
“But that’s not what you’re stressing over,” he realizes, sweeping my features once more. He turns his body more towards me, genuinely intrigued. “It’s something that you don’t think I have.”
“Correct assumption,” I nod tensely. Part of me doesn’t even want him to guess it—
“Tampons,” he says, right then. Yeah, I don’t feel any better by that either.
The color drains from my face.
“I’m right.” He tilts his head at me like
aren’t I?
He doesn’t balk. Or flinch or cringe.
“Maybe…”
He gives me one of the nicest smiles. “I live with a girl, myshka, so I have some. Don’t worry.”
I stay ashen, and the bottom of my stomach plummets to the carpet. What’s worse: I sense him studying my reaction, and his lips lower, smile entirely gone.
“That’s…cool,” I reply back, unsure of what else to add. The elevator doors spring open, on his floor.
I’m about to step into Nikolai Kotova’s world.
I just wonder who else is in it.
* * *
By the time we reach his door, my nerves have been shot to hell. It doesn’t help that music blares through the walls and into the hotel hallway. The loud pop beats are emanating from
his
room—no one else’s.
Nikolai’s demeanor has changed, doing a one-eighty. His eyes tighten and no longer fix on me but whatever’s happening inside.
I picture drugs. Lots of drugs. Alcohol. Maybe even dry humping. An orgy of epic Vegas proportions.
“Is…this normal?” I ask. “The music, I mean.”
“It’s not uncommon, unfortunately,” he says lowly. He swipes his card, and when the light flashes green, he pushes through with an authoritative stride.
But I freeze right in the doorway. Surprise widens my eyes.
It’s empty.
No grinding bodies. No spilt liquor. No rolled dollar bills and cocaine.
I tentatively walk inside, his suite a lot fancier than I anticipated. The back wall is all window with a skyline view of the city. The furniture is modern and sleek with black and white décor. I can’t help but notice the strain in Nikolai’s posture as he walks further inside, and I don’t think it’s about me staying at his place. Or else he would’ve been like this on the elevator.
Suede decorative pillows litter the ground, and the television blares, playing reruns of a popular reality show. Nikolai finds the stereo remote on the glass coffee table, powering that off first.
My ears almost stop ringing, but the television speakers are louder without the interference. On the TV, four guys stand in the cold, surrounded by snow. One sneers, “You must be a real f**king idiot if you think we’d be okay with someone our age sleeping with our girlfriends’ seventeen-year-old
little
sister.”
“She’s a model, man. We’ve spent nights at our friends’ flat—” The television blinks to black. Nikolai sets down the remote.
“I hate that guy,” he says under his breath, referring to Julian, the show’s villain.
My brows rise. “You watch
Princesses of Philly
?” It’s a guilty pleasure, only one season to keep rewatching.
“Katya is obsessed with it,” he says. I guess he watches it with
her.
Whoever her is. Maybe he has a Shay. A girl Shay, I mean.
A Haley to his Lucas.
For some reason, this thought only downturns my lips. I trek forward while he bends down and picks up a pair of black heels and checks his watch again. I try not to notice the silver purse and studded clutch lying around too.
My collarbones protrude as I hold in a breath. “I didn’t think Aerial Ethereal rooms would be this nice,” I say, making small talk. I pass the kitchen and enter the carpeted living room where he stands.
Nikolai glances back at me. “I wish they weren’t. AE uses it as an excuse to keep our salaries lower than they should be. I would give up the view for another grand a month.”
I probably would too.
Unconsciously, I assemble more evidence of Katya living with him: a scarf on the leather barstool, lip gloss and mascara beside the coffee pot, and necklaces dangling on a key hook.
His attention is latched on the spiral staircase that leads to one bedroom up above, like a loft. I wonder if that’s her room.
I re-knot the straps of my coat. “Is your girlfriend going to be upset by me staying here…?”
I trail off as his masculine gaze pins on me. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Girl that’s a friend,” I throw it out there.
“My little sister lives with me,” he clarifies for the first time.
I feel like an idiot. “You have a sister?” I think I’m wincing at myself.
“And four brothers,” he says. “But Katya is the only one who stays with me.”
I relax at the notion that I won’t be causing drama tonight. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. It’s for no other reason. “Does she care that I’m crashing here?”
“I haven’t told her yet.”
My breathing is strained, and I know I wear another pained expression. His sister will hate me on our very first encounter, the rude interloper who’s occupying her couch and disturbing her marathons of PoPhilly. “Did you text her earlier or drop any hints?”
Please say yes.
“She didn’t answer me. I’m going to tell her right now, and likely, she won’t mind. So breathe, Thora.” His eyes graze my collarbones.
I exhale deeply, taking his word for it.
He climbs the metal stairs, and then his knuckles rap the upstairs door. “
Katya
,” he says her name with a Russian lilt. “
Katya
.” Then he adds something in Russian. He stops himself short in what appears to be mid-sentence with a frustrated noise, and then switches to English. “Open the door. I need to talk to you.”
No reply. He twists the knob and disappears inside the room. Only a second later, he rushes out, skipping two or three stairs on his way down.
My pulse jackhammers. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“She’s not in her room.”
I check the time on my phone. “It’s only two in the morning. It’s Vegas, right? She could just be out with her friends.”
He bypasses me and grabs the keycard off the kitchen counter. “She’s only sixteen,” he says, setting those pulsing grays on me. “She has a curfew.”
I’d be panicking if Tanner was wandering around Vegas too, so I immediately understand his concern.
I hang back, uncertain on my place in this situation.
But he stops by the door, a hand on the frame and motions to me. “Come on.”
“I can stay here,” I tell him. “In case she returns.”
“I have cousins for that.”
Maybe he’s afraid I’ll steal something if he leaves me alone. I can understand that too. I’m a stranger, really. I use this fact to head over to him.
“We need to be quick,” he says as I pass his body. “I want to find her before three a.m.”
“What happens after three?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” His voice is deep and hollow. “I’ve always found her before then.”
Act Eleven
2:27 a.m.
My ankles and toes are blistered, the summer heat building beneath my coat. We walk briskly on the crowded strip, and I try to keep up with his lengthy stride to my short one.
The seventh drunk guy whistles at me from afar. I spot him waving his wallet. Nikolai has his hand firmly on the small of my back while he speaks quickly into his phone. If I was venturing alone, I think I’d be a little frightened. I’d need one wingman or wingwoman with me. Like a Camila.
But I can’t deny—a six-foot-five Russian athlete has been the best defense. No one has approached us or even really considered the feat.
I listen to Nikolai’s deep voice, picking up Katya’s name through the jargon. He’s called all of his brothers and now he’s onto a list of his cousins. Apparently she didn’t mention her nightly plans to anyone.
He suddenly pockets his phone. “This way.” His hand tightens on my waist, and he redirects me to a crosswalk, a hoard of people gathered underneath the red-hand symbol.
“You found her?” I ask.
“One of my cousin’s friends saw her at Fellini’s. It’s a restaurant on the strip.” So we’re close. Even so, he never relaxes. His eyes flit to my stilettos. “If your feet start to bleed, tell me.”
I think they’re probably close. I suck up the pain and just nod. His sister is missing, and the last thing he really needs is a five-minute break to inspect a couple blisters.
Cars screech to a halt, and everyone begins to cross. I dodge an incoming girl in a huge feather headdress, like her burlesque show just ended. Nikolai isn’t fazed by the Vegas nightlife, standing erect and steadfast. But all of it distracts me.
The fancy dresses, the limos, the commotion—a city that never sleeps. He nearly braces me to his side, probably so I don’t face-plant in my heels.
“Does your sister break curfew a lot?” I ask.
“Only recently.” He pauses. “She doesn’t want to live in Vegas anymore. She’s been begging me to let her audition for Noctis, and I keep telling her no.”
“Noctis,” I recall the name. “That’s one of the traveling shows.”
He nods. “It’s the show my parents are in. She just wants to be closer to them.”
It clicks. His parents aren’t even
in
Vegas, so that’s why she lives with Nikolai. And why Timo runs around The Masquerade so freely. In the short silence, Nikolai is lost in thought and I try to pay attention to the divots in the cement sidewalk.
He hugs me closer as a group of rowdy guys pass us, and then he instinctively wraps his arm around my shoulders, as though claiming me as more than a friend. Just to ward them away, I know. If I wasn’t wearing a “what’s underneath the long coat?” getup, it’d be a different story. I think. Maybe.
Maybe not.
He’s the most touchy-feely guy I’ve ever encountered. I’m not surprised either, considering he’s in tune with his body and spent years lifting and catching women for a living.
Thankfully, no one accidentally shoves into my arm. And I’m left in a warm cocoon, made by Russia. Believe me, I’m not complaining.
Even after they’ve gone, Nikolai keeps this embrace.
“Why not let your sister audition?” I ask him.
“Because she wouldn’t pass the first round. She’s not good enough for Noctis.”
I wince. “She could get better—”
“She could,” he says, “but she doesn’t try. Katya is average in her discipline. It’s just a fact.”
I frown. “What’s her discipline?”
“Russian bar.” He tucks me close to his side again as a giant bachelor party passes us. “She’s in Viva at The Masquerade, but all shows have different levels of difficulty. The Russian bar routine in Noctis is too complicated.” He adds, “And she’d be angry that our parents wouldn’t pull strings for her, just so she can be in it. I’d rather Katya hate me than hate them.”