Now I’m really imagining his dick. What it used to look like—what it might look like now. Great. I need to stop. I know I need to stop, but it’s like a snowball effect. I can’t slow down enough to just…leave him. And this situation.
I can repeat no minors policy a million times, and it’s not helping enough. It’s not forcing me off my stool and through the exit.
I feel like a terrible person. Maybe I really am one.
Dimitri hasn’t physically separated Luka and me yet, and maybe he’s uncertain on what action to take since we’ve never been this close before. At least not after we signed those contracts. Almost five years ago.
Sergei’s confusion escalates, and he suddenly motions between me and his little brother. “Are you two together?”
“No,” we say in unison.
My bones ache; I’m so rigid.
“What are you drinking?” Dimitri asks me, grabbing my empty glass. He sniffs. “Alright, Baybay”—I hate when he calls me that, and unfortunately, he knows it—“you’re cut off.”
He likes to pretend he’s my father and Luka’s brother, but he’s neither to us. He’s his cousin and my co-worker friend.
For some reason, his words really rile me. It touches a deep place in my gut that was ready to enflame. In this moment, Dimitri represents Aerial Ethereal, those strict contracts, and every other hand that has clawed Luka and I apart.
On my stool, I spin more towards Dimitri—Luka looks at me. I feel him staring right in my direction.
“You can’t tell me when to stop drinking. You can’t order me around at all.”
Dimitri raises his brows. “I think I can. I throw my balls, you catch my balls. That’s how it works, Baybay.”
Luka hates when Dimitri refers to them as his balls more than me. I usually don’t care, but when he uses it as an attack, it’s annoying.
So I’m not surprised when Luka retorts in Russian, right at Dimitri.
“Stay out of it,” Dimitri tells Luka.
Before Luk replies, I say, “You’re not my dad, Dimitri. I had one.” They all hush and stare at me intently. My passion returns but in a more painful way. “His name was Neal Wright and he was a brilliant novelist, and not you or anyone could ever replace him.”
At this, I stand off my stool. And I wobble. Luka reaches out to catch me, but I spin into someone else’s chest.
My brother.
Shit.
Brenden holds me close and looks murderous, not just at Luka—but at all the Kotovas. Like they’re an extension of Luka’s bad influence on me.
“I’m leaving,” I say to my brother, fisting the back of his shirt so my knees don’t buckle.
Brenden points at Luka. “You owe her a grand.”
“Stop,” I force, about to break away from him now. I can’t bring myself to meet Luka’s eyes.
“What are you talking about?” Luka asks, sounding confused.
“You stole her box and then put it in another room.”
Luka says, “You were fined?” I think he’s asking me. He’s talking to me. He shouldn’t be…the contract…
A pit lowers in my stomach. I’m staring off at the wall—at the exit. I’m leaving. I try to pull away from my brother, but he clasps my hand like I need support.
I do, but not in the way he’s providing. It’s not his fault. He’s doing what he thinks is right.
“I told you he did it,” Brenden says to me.
Luka interjects, “What? No. No, I didn’t steal anything of hers. I wouldn’t…”
“Wait,” Sergei chimes in. “What box are you talking about?”
My head whips up to Sergei. He’s the only person still sitting, and behind him, Zhen starts to step on a tall stool to make an announcement.
“A cardboard box,” I say.
“Her name was on it,” Brenden adds.
“Right.” Sergei nods in realization. “That was me.”
What? I’m dumbfounded. Jaw unhinged, eyes big. He’s not apologetic, but maybe because he’s not aware of what happened.
“You stole her box?” Brenden is disbelieving. I think he wanted the thief to be Luka.
Zhen stands on a stool. “Infini artists!” he calls, barely catching anyone’s attention.
“I was helping a cousin move, and I remember taking the wrong box. I thought I put it back in the right room. Didn’t I?”
“At midnight.” I gape.
“You owe her a thousand bucks,” Brenden says.
Sergei’s eyes widen in shock, and he raises his hands. “No. I don’t have that kind of money. Aerial Ethereal didn’t even pay for my flight to the US.”
“You think my little sister has an extra grand lying around?”
“Little sister,” Sergei repeats under his breath, looking between us. “Right. I’m sorry, but I can’t help her. It’s not my problem.”
Luka shakes his head repeatedly. Over and over.
“What?” Sergei snaps.
Luka fumes silently, trying not to start something. He starts to walk away.
Sergei hops off his stool and grabs Luka’s shoulder. “No, what do you have to say? Tell me.”
Luka faces him. “You don’t want me to tell you what I think.”
“I do. I just asked.”
Luka grimaces, features brutally pained. He runs a hand down his face like he hates feeling this, like he’s trying to wipe it all off. I wince at the sight.
“Luka,” Sergei growls.
“Nothing’s ever your problem,” Luka tells him. “Nothing’s ever your responsibility—”
“Everyone!” Zhen shouts and snaps his fingers, wine in his other hand. “Look here!”
The bar quiets, just as Sergei snaps, “That’s not true.”
Luka’s brows jump. “That’s not true? You just told her it’s not my problem.”
“It’s not.”
“Is that what you said when Mom and Dad asked you to take care of us?” Luka questions. “It’s not my problem. You just shirked everything onto Nikolai without a second thought. I know you did. Look at your face. It says you don’t care about anyone but yourself, which is fine. You don’t care about me, and guess what, I don’t give a fuck about you.”
It hurts.
Every word he says bleeds into the air.
“I was twenty-two,” Sergei retorts.
“I was thirteen,” Luka says with the shake of his head. “Timo was twelve, and you know, Kat, she was ten.” He stretches his arms. “I’m done.” The bar is utterly quiet as Luka heads to the exit, but then he pauses and spins back again.
I can’t read Sergei’s expression. My vision not only blurs, but he keeps his emotions bottled.
Everyone in the bar stares at Luka, not Zhen.
“Don’t you dare fuck with Timo,” Luka says coldly. “Dimitri and whoever might be okay with you here, but I’m not. And that girl, right there”—he points at me but glares at Sergei—“is way too good for a piece of shit like you.”
At this, Luka walks tensely out of the bar.
Leaving me iced-over and stunned. I don’t attempt to follow him, even if I want to—because there are multiple men who’d physically restrain me from reaching Luka’s side.
Zhen raises his wine glass and clears his throat. “Here’s to a new season,” he announces. “May we all work together and set aside our differences. Because…it might be the only way we can save Infini.”
Act Seven
Luka Kotova
The elevator beeps.
I exit onto the lobby floor at 5:30 a.m.—and no one’s out and about except for gamblers that can’t quit and hotel employees. Quiet, mostly, I reach the enormous Dionysus fountain that parades over the entrance’s revolving doors.
My little brother waits on the edge of the fountain. His dark hair is damp from a circuit workout before his actual practice in the performance gym.
I carry two plates of breakfast food over to Timo, and he plucks out his earbuds while I sit beside him.
His face lights up. “You didn’t burn my pancakes. Miracles do happen.”
I pass him the paper plate of egg-white oatmeal pancakes that I did almost burn. It’s not a secret that I suck at cooking and baking, but Timo asked me to whip these up since he wanted to hit the gym early.
Usually we eat breakfast together in our suite, but we don’t share one anymore. Our options are pretty pathetic. Hotel food is way too expensive to eat every single morning. So that’s out.
Timo’s room contains Sergei. Who we can’t stand.
My room contains Brenden. Who I’ve successfully avoided since the secret cast party weeks ago. (I’m keeping it that way.)
And then Nikolai and Katya’s suite also includes a girl I’ve promised I wouldn’t touch. Promised I wouldn’t look at—and I recognize, more than anyone can tell me, that I fractured these promises in one night.
In one impulsive moment.
I did it. I saw Sergei, of all people, speaking to the one girl I’ve never been able to truly forget. And something snapped in me. I just moved. I just walked over there and butted in—and you know what, I don’t regret it.
I looked at Baylee. No one can even understand what that felt like. For my eyes to latch onto hers, for us to really see one another after years of avoidance.
It was like I’d just taken my first breath. Maybe I was dreaming. I don’t even care if I imagined our fingers touching. Because it felt real to me.
Breaking a part of the contract and getting away with it—it fuels me.
In the worst way.
I crave to do it again, but I’m trying to honor her own feelings and wishes. I could tell she was scared, and I don’t want to frighten her or push her.
So I hang back. I cross off her suite as an option, and I try to forget Baylee.
Every fucking day, I try.
As I eat, Timo watches me bite into my breakfast burrito, bacon and sausage spilling out onto my paper plate. In so many ways, we’re different from each other.
He hesitates. “Please tell me you cooked my pancakes in another pan.”
I wipe my mouth with a flimsy paper napkin. “No, but I cooked yours first.” Timo has been vegetarian since we were little.
“In a clean pan? No judgment,” he adds. “Just being careful.”
“Clean,” I say through a mouthful of food.
Then he starts cutting into his pancakes. I look around the lobby. I miss Katya. I’ve been in her suite less than usual because Baylee is there.
Likewise, I overheard Brenden complaining about nearly the same thing. To Zhen, he said that Bay won’t come over our suite because of me, and he’s spent less time with her recently.
“How’s Kat?” I ask Timo.
“Unhappy. Like the rest of us.” He adjusts his earbuds around his neck and picks up his plastic fork again. “I asked for a pay raise yesterday.”
My brows lift, and I take another bite of my burrito. He’s talked about approaching Aerial Ethereal for a raise before, but he’s never taken the steps.
“What really irritates me,” he says, “is not that they said no. It’s that they still expect me to put in total, complete effort above everyone else while paying me as much as…” He glances hesitantly at me, not wanting to hurt my feelings.
His salary is identical to mine.
The thing is, I’ve been slapped on the wrist a million times. I’ve even been demoted, and only now that I’ve returned to Infini, my pay is higher. Timo is their real money-maker. Right alongside Nikolai, and yet, Nik is paid a lot more than him.
Timofei deserves a pay raise. I’ve been in the audience for Amour before, and everyone leaves talking about his performance. His talent can’t be manufactured or taught. It’s a hundred-percent natural and one-of-a-kind. Add in his disciplined work-ethic, and he should be the top-paid artist in Aerial Ethereal.
I nod in agreement. “It’s bullshit,” I mumble through a mouthful of egg and tortilla.
Timo gives me and my burrito a look.
I return the favor, my brows cinching at him.
“Don’t you have your first formal practice in an hour?” he asks.
Today is the day.
The day that I have to stop avoiding Sergei. And whether intentional or unintentional, I’ll most likely see Baylee again. (It’s not a bad thing to anyone but Corporate.) Plus I have to greet a choreographer that has badgered the entire cast of Infini via email for weeks.
I’m looking forward to this like someone looks forward to a full-body wax.
I shrug at my brother. “So?” I give him a look that says: I’m fine.
His says: I don’t think you are.
“I have everything under control,” I tell him.
Timo knows I have a horrible diet. I ate an entire pepperoni pizza before conditioning last week. Zhen saw me and then a day later, he slipped a nutritional printout beneath my door.
I smoke. I drink.
I eat junk food. The best part: there is nothing that Corporate can do to stop me. Their Wellness Policy is all about maintaining certain body measurements and not taking any kind of performance drugs.
I’ve maintained the same body measurements for years.
I’m drug-free.
(Corporate can kiss my ass.)
“Is there anything I can do?” Timo asks.
“No,” I say instantly.
He takes the hint and switches topics, talking about club-hopping this weekend. He always invites me, but I don’t always join. When he parties, he’s a firestorm. Lively and enthralling but completely uncontrollable. He rolls in around 4 or 5 a.m., still upbeat. Very few people can keep up with him.
And I’m not really one of those people, much to Nikolai’s displeasure. He’d love for me to be Timo’s 24/7 chaperone.
Finishing my burrito, I ball my soggy plate and free-throw it into a trash bin. Right when it lands perfectly, a familiar person pushes through the revolving door.
John Ruiz.
I know him well enough by now. Twenty-five, six-foot-something Colombian-American. Unshaven jaw, windswept brown hair, and a never-ending gruff expression. Like the universe just took a giant shit on his head.
Two coffee cups in hand, he makes his entrance into the Masquerade like he’s being forced into a circle of hell.
Yet, I doubt he’d choose to be anywhere else but here.
“Seriously?” John stops a couple feet from us, dumbfounded. “Seriously. You’re both still camping out in the lobby like vagrants when you have suites that cost five-hundred a night. Tell me, world, what is wrong with this picture?”
“Does the world ever respond to you?” Timo banters. “Or do you just get off hearing your own voice, old man?”
John stares blankly. “You think I like the sound of my voice? No. But I have to talk because people don’t say what needs to be said.”
Timo raises his brows. “That’s really why?”
John looks fresh out of amusement. “Maybe if everyone practiced honesty, they wouldn’t need me.”
“The secret is out.” Timo smiles. “You’ll shut up if I say all the honest things on my mind.”
“As delightful as you are, Timofei,” he says dryly. “You’re not the only human on this planet. I’m making up for everyone.”
“So you’re not shutting up anytime soon.” Timo’s face breaks into the brightest grin.
“Not a chance, babe.”
At this, John passes Timo a coffee.
My brother is like a beam of light, and then John dips his head down to cup my brother’s cheek. He kisses Timo on the lips, and he reciprocates the affection, only smiling more.
John mumbles a greeting against the kiss, and when they break apart, I notice the red flush on my brother’s neck, completely taken by his boyfriend.
It makes my lips curve upward.
“Luka,” John greets and sips his coffee. “Should I just expect you both to be sitting here a century from now? Decomposing. Archeologists digging up bones th
at they really didn’t want to find.”
He talks way too much for me.
Seriously still smiling, Timo eats the last of his pancakes and says, “It’s complicated.” My brother hands me the coffee cup, and I pop the lid. No whip cream, no cinnamon. John buys Timo’s favorite soy cappuccino. (It tastes like ass, but I’ll still drink it.)
“Complicated? You’re both avoiding siblings. It’s not complicated.”
“Have you met Sergei?” I ask John.
“Not yet.” His face grows darker, more serious, and he eyes Timo, waiting for my brother to respond.
“I don’t want you to meet him, man,” Timo admits, standing with an empty plate in hand. “He’s an unpleasant person.”
“Most—no, all people are shit,” John says. “The world is a terrible, disgusting place to live.”
Timo gapes. “No wonder the world never responds to you.”
John rolls his eyes dramatically, but they both smile at one another. “I want to meet your older brother.”
“Even if I hate him?” Timo asks, throwing away his plate.
“Especially because you hate him.” John reaches out and catches Timo’s hand, tugging him to his chest.
I give them privacy by staring off at the entrance, the sky lightening. I chug the soy cappuccino, and I hear John ask about Timo’s pay raise and the subsequent “I’m sorry, babe” after my brother explains the rejection. When I look up, Timo and John part—Timo headed for the gym, but John, for whatever reason, lingers by the fountain.
By me.
I’m not chatty like him. If he has something to say, he better say it.
His eyes drop to my cup. “Can you tell me why he gives you his coffee every morning?”
I know why. “Ask Timo.” I rise to my feet, finishing the last drop and chucking it into the trash. I pick up my water bottle.
John is still here. “I did. Now I’m asking you.”
Of course Timo didn’t tell him the truth. Then John would stop bringing a second cup, which means that I’d stop getting a coffee every morning. (Even if it tastes like ass.)
“It’s simple,” I tell John, walking backwards towards the guest bathrooms. “Timo doesn’t drink caffeine before practice.”
John simultaneously sighs and rolls his eyes. “But you do?”
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