“It’s no problem,” he says. “If you need to stay longer, the couch is free.”
His hands practically burn through the towel.
“I’ll be out by the end of the week,” I tell him assuredly. I thought about returning to Camila’s, but she hasn’t mentioned anything about it. I don’t want to overstay my welcome, especially when I was supposed to be out of there soon, regardless of her family. “My paycheck comes in then, and I’ve already narrowed down a couple studio apartments.” I don’t mention any logistics, like having to dip into my savings for the deposit. But it’ll be worth it in the long run. I hate mooching off him, and it’s been weighing on me.
He says nothing, but his jaw muscles tense, as though he’s clenching his teeth. The silence creates a chasm, and so I fill the air once again.
“I thought the colors for Amour are red and pink.”
He opens his eyes, most of the purple makeup gone. But he has a bit of black liner left and silver dots on his forehead that I’m wiping away.
I focus on my hand, the one that holds his unshaven jaw, my fingers and palm small compared to him.
“You’ve never seen the show.” It’s not a question, but I hear his surprise.
“I’ve seen a show,” I say in a whisper.
“But not Amour.”
I’m about to reply, but my phone vibrates loudly on the sink counter. I retrieve it and click into the text message.
I told coach to keep your spot open for another few days. Hopefully you’ll realize how crazy you’re being before then.
– Shay
While I skim the words, I feel Nikolai stand. He comes up next to me and reaches for the eye drops.
His gaze briefly travels to my cell. “Let me guess, your best friend.” I hear a hint of bitterness.
“He just thinks there’s more to offer me in Ohio.”
Nikolai towers above me, squeezing drops into his eyes. “Like what?” he asks. “Him?”
“No…he just cares about me enough to want me to succeed, and he doesn’t think I will here.” I lean my back against the sink. After he sets down his drops, he steps closer, standing in front of my half-naked body. Another step forward and his legs knock into mine.
I hold my towel securely, and my lungs eject. As soon as he places his hands on either side of the counter, cocooning me here, I scale my attraction to him.
It’s catastrophically off the charts.
He stares down at me, his intensity present, bringing me to a boil. “When he throws you a lifeline, Thora,” he says, “don’t grab it.”
“Why?” I expect him to mention the pull that is occurring right now, the kind that has his reddened eyes drawing lines along my neck and collarbones.
“The more crutches he gives you, the more you’ll contemplate quitting. It’s the easy way out, and you’ve done this much already.”
He’s right, in a way. When Shay gives me an alternative route, it’s easier to pack up my bags and go home. I don’t think I will though, and knowing he’s there—it’s comforting. “If I fall, he’s my safety net,” I explain to Nikolai. Shay will be the one to pick up the pieces. That’s why he wants me to come home now.
He cups my face, his hand coarse, masculine. And strong. “Thora, he doesn’t even want to give you the chance to fall. That’s not a safety net, it’s a harness.”
I go cold. “And what are you?” I ask. “My safety net?”
He takes a step back. And another. I guess I said the wrong thing. Or maybe the right one—I have no clue anymore.
“I’m just here to help you succeed,” he says. “I don’t know what that’s called.”
“Me either…”
He combs a hand through his hair. “I’ll give you some privacy so you can change. Katya wanted Thai, so there’s more in the kitchen if you’d like to eat.”
“Thanks…”
for everything.
I think my eyes express it enough because he nods a couple times. I read into our conversation, and I wonder if he’s telling me to be strong enough to cut all ties—that the only way I can do my best is to be all in. No matter what.
I’ve slowly been snipping lifelines since I’ve been here, but some of them are harder to cut than others.
Some of them hurt more. There’s no other truth but that.
Act Seventeen
“Everyone always makes college sound epic,” Katya tells me, eyeing my Ohio State shirt that I changed into, plus a pair of collegiate sweats. I twisted my wet hair in a low pony, and it soaks the red fabric of my tee.
On the couch, the sixteen-year-old girl kicks her feet on the glass coffee table, a fresh plate of chicken and vegetables teetering on her leg. I’m not sure what kind of Thai this is, but it’s like the athlete version, almost no sauce. I’m sitting beside her with a half-filled plate in my hands.
“It’s not like you see on TV,” I explain. Then I frown, recalling a couple drunken parties with an inflatable theme—guys carting around blow-up dolls and girls dressed in balloons. “I mean, some of it is, but they don’t show the studying and cramming.”
Katya sips a blue sports drink, contemplating this. Sober Katya is a much different Katya. More tomboy than the girl I met with caked-on makeup and a martini. She wears jeans and a white tank top, no costume jewelry or feather boas.
Surprisingly, she’s taken my invasion of her couch really well, all things considered.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m going to miss out on something,” she says softly. I’m about to give her some encouragement when the pipes in the wall groan, Nikolai’s shower shutting off.
I tense, and a piece of chicken lodges on its way down.
Katya stabs at her broccoli. “But it can’t be that great if you left it, right?” Her orb-like eyes seem to grow. In the daylight she appears more wistful and otherworldly: pale skin, big lips, eyes and ears on a thin, willowy figure.
“It’s not that it wasn’t great,” I say, carefully choosing my words. “I just wanted something else.”
She chews in thought, nodding her head like she understands. Her brown hair is parted in the middle, still wet from her earlier shower. Viva ends earlier than Amour, but she had tutoring right after. Like home school, she said.
I can’t imagine never attending an actual school, one with hallways and bells that chime every hour. But from what she’s told me, tutoring in between practices and shows is the norm. All her brothers did it, including Nikolai.
“Do you know any costume shops around here?” I ask. “Or I guess lingerie ones? I have to buy some corsets and things for my act at Phantom. I need them relatively cheap though.”
Her gray eyes brighten, and she drops her feet from the coffee table, leaning closer. “I know the best place,” she says excitedly. “Are you free tomorrow afternoon?”
“No.” That wasn’t me. It was the six-foot-five Russian-American man entering the room.
Katya pouts. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
I turn my head to Nikolai and choke on a vegetable. He stands by the kitchen bar, a towel slung low on his waist. So close to naked: sculpted biceps, shoulders and abs that draw attention. I accidentally glance at his crotch, hidden behind the fabric. His nearly-naked-self is not distracting to anyone but me. I quickly sip my water, knowing he caught my initial reaction.
“Thora is training with me tomorrow,” Nikolai says.
Unless I have a heart attack before then.
Katya lets out a frustrated breath and sets her plate down. “I finally have a friend who isn’t related to me and you have to steal her?”
My spirits rise. Katya likes me enough to call me a friend? Secondly, I’ve made another one since being in Vegas. I think I’m headed in a good direction.
Nikolai rests his arm on the bar counter. “She’s not here to be your friend,
Katya
. She’s here to train.” He pauses. “And she was my friend first.”
I try to hide a smile. “I can be everyone’s friend,” I mention softly.
Nikolai wears a stern expression, facing me. “Do you want to train or not?”
“I do, you know I do.” I talk to Katya before she explodes on her brother. She’s about there, sitting on her knees and gripping the couch, like she could jump to her feet and charge. “We can go another day. I still need you to show me the store.”
“What store?” Nikolai interjects, slipping into the kitchen that’s in view of the living room, no wall or divider separating them.
“Coco Roma,” Katya tells him, plopping down on her butt.
He was midway in opening the fridge, now he shuts it without grabbing anything. Whatever he says next is foreign to me. His gruff Russian fluently leaves his lips.
Katya stares at him blankly, and I’m thankful for her rebellious rule—the one where she’ll only converse with him in English.
He sighs, more agitated, and switches languages. “Were you planning on going to that part of town with just Thora?”
“No,” Katya snaps back. “I would’ve brought Timo.”
Nikolai glares. “Take someone as big as me or bigger or you’re not going.”
I scan the length of him as he crosses his arms. He’s the definition of intimidating—tall, muscular, all brawn and man. And I’m sure there’s plenty more beneath his towel. “There are people bigger than you?” I say—aloud. I cringe. I don’t even pretend to hide it.
I swear his lips tic upwards, humor lighting his stormy eyes.
Katya is the one who answers. “You should see Dimitri. He’s like a tank.”
I watch Nikolai’s features harden, and he returns to the fridge, his back to me.
Katya adds, “But he’s also obnoxious.” She picks up my tattered paperback from the couch cushion. I lent her my favorite paranormal romance after she asked what I was reading. “You have my number, right?” she questions for the third time, as though I deleted it.
I nod. “Yep. Katya Kotova, permanently saved in my contacts.”
She smiles when I mention
permanently.
She stands and rotates to her brother, but he’s busy pouring a glass of water at the sink. “I’ll weigh my options about who we’ll bring and get back to you.”
“I’m assuming I’m not an option.”
Katya crinkles her nose. “Maybe if you were more fun.”
He sips his water with the most authoritative, stern look in the history of looks. He’s not even trying to convince her otherwise, and I think he prefers it this way. I remember Hex, his flirty, roaming hands, and The Red Death, his dazzling, high-octane bet.
He can be fun, but he switches that off in front of his siblings. Katya rolls her eyes and waves him off as she departs to her bedroom in the upstairs loft.
Nikolai sets down the water and walks to a high cupboard, retrieving a bottle of red wine and
two
glasses. Nervous flutters invade my stomach. I wonder if I should reject the wine. Then I remember my long night that contains catcalls and Roger’s complaints about my wardrobe. A glass of wine sounds relaxing, and it’s not like we’re back at Hex, slamming down shots.
I won’t have a painful hangover in the morning, unable to adequately train.
Even so, I find myself hesitating. “Maybe I shouldn’t,” I say as he goes to pour the second glass. He pauses with the bottle above it, ready to stop. His actions—that he’d be willing to listen to my wishes—ease every part of me. “Maybe I should though?”
“Your choice, myshka.”
“Okay.” I nod him on.
He fills the wine glass only a quarter of the way. When he enters the living room area, he hands it to me. “I didn’t want to take out the bottle until Katya left,” he says as he sinks in the white chair across from the couch. “She would’ve asked for some.”
“And you would’ve said no?” I guess.
He nods, more morose and pensive as he stares at the carpet. “It’s one thing to say
no
when only I’m here, and it’s another to do it in front of someone else.”
I think I can understand that. She would’ve wanted to be treated like me, not like a kid since she’s sixteen, a teenager. Hardly a child.
I try not to stare too hard at him while we talk. But he’s still in a towel. It’s very hard not to notice it. I set my half-eaten plate down, appetite gone thanks to the nervous flutters. I’ll stick with the wine. “So you have four brothers,” I throw it out there.
“I do,” he says without elaborating. He smiles into his next sip of wine, knowing I’ll have to ask further.
I’m glad my horrible small talk efforts can entertain him. “I’ve met Timo and Luka, but where are the other two?”
“Madrid, until the end of the month, then they’ll be in…” His brows furrow, and he rubs his eyes, less reddened than before. “Valencia or Sevilla, I can’t remember.”
“They’re touring?” I guess.
“Noctis,” he says with a weak smile. “They’re on the European tour for another year and a half; then the show will go to Japan for a full twelve months.”
“Wow…” That’s a lot of traveling and separation from the rest of his family. I can see why Katya wants to join it—if that’s the only way she can see her mom and dad. I don’t want to pry, but so many questions sprout. I must wear them on my face since he speaks first.
“I haven’t seen Peter and Sergei in six years.” He pushes back the longer strands of his hair, still damp from his shower. Rarely does his gaze drift from mine, but in recollection of the past, he has a thousand-yard stare. “We talk on the phone, but it’s not the same as being here.”
“Are they young…like Katya?”
He shakes his head. “No. Peter is twenty-four, two years younger than me, and Sergei will be twenty-eight in July, two years older.”
I want to ask what happened—how they ended up split apart—but I’m not sure he’ll tell me. I’m not even sure it’s something he shares often. Just by his dark, faraway expression, I can tell it brings him to a place he’s not fond of going.
I sip my wine with rusted joints. Since I unearthed a sore subject, I decide to lighten the mood. I take the plunge. “Don’t tell me you sleep in the nude.” I nod to his towel, my lame attempt at a joke. I put the rim of the glass to my lips, gulping a sizable amount.
His eyes smile. “It’s much more comfortable.”
What? I choke on the liquid, coughing hoarsely.
He rises from his chair, as if ready to give me mouth-to-mouth. I hold up a hand, and he pauses in the middle of the floor.