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.”
I have a compartment of pain, but if I open it, I’ll be too fucked-up to even get on stage. She knows this. It’s why she’s afraid he’ll break me.
“In short,” Baylee whispers, “he’s a diabolical moron.”
I speak quietly too. “I still can’t believe you’re just now horrified. Should I feel honored or concerned?” I smile at the look she gives me, her seriousness never waning. “Come here, krasavitsa.” Edging close, the curves of her hips meld against the ridges of my body.
She looks up. “You know I’m here for you, Luka.” We used to always have each other’s back. When she was depressed, I was there. When I felt like things were spiraling out of my control, she was there. Our mental issues predate our friendship. They existed when we were together.
They persisted when we separated.
And they’re here right now. Living inside of us. They will rise and fade but never truly go away. There is no quick-fix or cure—but we deal. Every day, we silently deal with it, but facing our demons with support has always been easier than facing them alone.
“I see it,” I say wholeheartedly. I nod to her. “I feel it. You don’t even have to say it, Bay.”
She swallows, this small thread of hurt still strung between us—because we can’t do or say any of this out in the open.
I rest my forehead to hers; I hold the back of her head. She grips my waist, and I can hear her shallow breath. I slip my other hand up her tank top, our bodies grinding instinctively together.
My lips descend to hers, and a breath away, I whisper, “I know how hard you’ve been fucked before.”
Her lips part, and she makes an involuntary noise, like a breathy moan. The sound alone fists my shaft and strokes up and down. My muscles flex, and instead of kissing Bay, I spin her around and clutch her back to my chest.
My arm around her abdomen, other one around her breasts. Pressed this close, she can feel my erection against her, and she curses beneath her breath, panting already.
I suck the nape of her neck, and she shudders in my arms. My muscles constrict, and I harden even more. Without letting go of Baylee, I walk through the next curtain. Into the actual shower. She moves with me, and I only take my hand off Bay to close the curtain.
My lips against her ear, I whisper, “In a minute, you’ll be fucked harder than you’ve ever been fucked before. My cock”—I have to hold her tighter as she trembles more forcefully—“will be buried so deep inside of you, you’ll cry at the feeling of being completely, entirely full.”
“Luka,” she says into another breathy noise.
My nose flares, and I release my grip around her waist and put her palms against the shower wall. She turns her head slightly—I turn her head more with two fingers, and our lips meet, kissing hard and rough and urgent. Like this could all end.
At any moment.
It could be all over again.
I deepen the kiss, and Baylee digs her ass into me—I yank down her sports leggings, and she steps out.
I peel off my shirt, her shirt and bra—my shorts and compression shorts. Both of us naked, my arm snakes around her hip, and my hand dips between her legs. She’s beautiful. Every curve. Every straight line and mound—I love every inch of this girl.
Baylee leans her weight back against me, trusting me. Letting go of the wall.
I kiss her neck, a grunt in my throat, and I rub her clit while I hold her back against my body. Baylee’s head lolls to my chest, eyes shut in pure arousal. Mouth agape.
In my arms, she has no problem getting off. She’s not numb or frozen in fear. But that’s only because she’s emotionally connected to me. She’s hasn’t let go, and this list is making it even harder to do that.
I know now—or maybe I’ve known all along—that we’re just using the list as an excuse to be together. To see each other. Neither of us will bring up the fact that it’s not working. Neither of us will admit the truth.
Because then it ends.
I cover her mouth with my palm. Her noises raspier and louder as my fingers speed up and pulse inside of her. So fucking wet.
She turns her head left and right, overwhelmed. I smile, my heart rate elevating and sweat building just as much on my body as hers. Baylee arches in an orgasm, her moan vibrating against my hand. I suck the base of her neck, and she careens forward, her entire body quivering.
My cock is throbbing, too intensely. I flex my core to keep from coming.
“Shit,” she cries, water creasing her eyes from the climax. She clutches onto my wrist between her legs.
“You’re okay,” I breathe in her ear. “You’re okay.” I cup
her pussy and then wrap my other arm around her collarbones. Baylee shuts her eyes, coming down with heavy breaths.
With every muscle fiber, every burning nerve in my veins—I crave to go down on Baylee. More than she can probably fathom, but I’m not touching number four on her list. Once I do, it’s all over.
Our ending will be crueler than Geoffrey could ever be to us. There is no happy ending, so I’m staying in the middle for as long as humanly possible.
Baylee’s head swerves, finding my lips, and we kiss slower. Sensual. I spin her around fully and cup her face. Since she’s on birth control, I don’t worry about a condom.
I draw her even closer, and I hike her left leg around my waist. I’m about to lift her up by the hips, but she presses her forehead to my chest and mutters, “Wait wait.”
I wait, at first thinking she needs to catch her breath, but gradually, she slides her arms beneath mine, hugging me. Her cheek to my chest.
Bay. I drop her leg so I can wrap my arms around her again. I watch her eyes close, and she relaxes before grinding up against me. I can’t explain what that was. It’s happened a million times before. When I was young, I used to think every girl needed this skintight affection.
(They don’t. Everyone is different.)
“Ready?” I whisper in her ear.
She nods.
Easily, I lift Bay, clutching her hips, and our eyes lock while I lower her onto my erection. Warmth cocoons my cock like a closed fist—my eyes nearly roll back. Yes… She inhales a sharp breath and cries out, not too loudly.
I use my arms to raise her up and down my shaft. Slow at first. Baylee’s fingers dig into my shoulder as she pants for deeper breaths. Our gazes don’t detach, and I speed up in an instant—unknowing how much time we have before people fill the locker room.
Fuck…fuck. I ram so hard and quick into Bay that I brace her shoulders to the wall and rest my forearm beside her head. My muscles constricting. Scalding. Flexing. All to drive my cock deeper, farther, harder into Baylee.
On another plane of existence, fuck. A guttural sound scratches my throat, but I force it down and cover her mouth as she cries out again. I seize her gaze, desire blanketing my entire being. She trembles, thighs vibrating against me.
Fuckfuckfuck. I lift my hand off her mouth, kissing her passionately, and then she has to turn her head, about to come.
“Luka,” she says into the softest, most vulnerable cry.
Lit on fire, I hold her cheek and caress her skin with my thumb. “You’re coming,” I whisper against her lips, only speeding up the friction.
I’m so far inside this girl.
My eyes roll and I shut them and hit a peak with Bay. My body rocking forward. She clenches around my cock, fingernails dug in my back, and eyes tightened closed.
With a heavy breath, I milk the climax, pumping in and out on a slow descent. Coming down, Baylee hugs onto my neck, and I carefully pull out but keep her hoisted around my waist.
That’s when a door creaks, proceeded by the slam as it shuts.
We both tense and don’t dare make a move.
Someone’s here.
I strain my ears and catch two audible voices. A girl. And a guy.
Baylee stares wide-eyed at our closed shower curtain. Footsteps near. The voices escalate, growing close. I feel her pulse race.
I strengthen my grip, one hand beneath her thigh, my other arm around her back—pressing her body firmly to my chest, and her breathing steadies.
I listen intently, my gaze fixed on the motionless curtain.
“AE’s doctors did their own tests, and this…is happening.”
I know that voice.
It’s Thora James.
“Myshka—” Nikolai starts to say little mouse in Russian, his husky voice tender for his girlfriend.
Thora interjects, “You said that you’d leave the choice up to me, and you’d support me no matter what—but you already know what I’m going to say, don’t you? You knew what I’d choose.”
“Yes.”
I frown, hearing the emotion in my brother’s voice.
Thora takes an audible breath. “You think I’m idealistic?”
“Brave,” he says deeply.
In a short pause, I picture her wiping tears and my brother hugging his girlfriend. As they speak more hushed, I turn my head slightly towards the curtain. Trying to hear every word.
“I decided,” Thora breathes, “that life has always been unpredictable. I came here for the slim chance to be in the circus, and what I got was the most unbelievable dream job—and you. How we react to life’s curveballs is what defines us. I can put my job on hold while I’m…” Her voice breaks, but in Thora James’ fashion, her optimism blooms in place of fear. “I might be ordinary and average, but I’m capable of anything if I just believe in myself. And I do. I can do this, Nik.”
“We,” Nik says. “The responsibility of a baby is not all on you, myshka. This is ours.”
My jaw unhinges.
Thora is pregnant.
I exchange a stunned look with Bay. Being pregnant in this profession—it’s like sustaining an injury with a year-long recovery. It means being benched for a whole season with no guarantee that you’ll land a contract for the next.
“The other thing I have to say,” Thora tells him so quietly I almost miss it, “you’re not going to like.”
I can almost feel my brother tense up.
“The higher-ups in AE, I don’t even know their names, already created a timeline and schedule for me. I didn’t meet them, but their assistants relayed the info. They said that while I’m unable to perform, aerial silk will be shelved—”
“I don’t care,” Nik says. He performs aerial silk, so he’ll be relegated to group acts only. “I wouldn’t care about that.”
“That’s not it,” Thora says. “They want me—us, to finish out March.”
My stomach drops.
Baylee looks incensed and confused, and she mouths to me, they can’t do that.
It sounds like Corporate just did.
“You’re pregnant,” Nik growls under his breath, his voice rattling in rage. “You can’t perform. It’s too dangerous.”
“They said since I’m only six-weeks, I can go until the end of March.”
I try to count in my head, but Nik already has the numbers. “It’s only March 17th, Thora. There’s two weeks left—you can’t. I know you believe you can, but this shouldn’t be on the table at all. I’m talking to Kavich.”
He’s the lead director for Amour.
“You can try,” she says softly, “but they told me that more critics were coming in March—and they need aerial silk in the program. If I don’t do this, they said that they wouldn’t pay me for the two months I’ve been in Amour. And they kind of hinted that I wouldn’t have a job to return to.”
She means threatened.
(Fuck Corporate.)
“They’re trying to take advantage of you. They have to pay you; it’s in your contact—”
Thora cuts in as he gets heated, “I know. I already called my parents. I asked them if they knew any lawyers that could read over my contract.”
Baylee gives me a look like she’s about to sneeze. She pinches her nose, and I try to bring her head to the crook of my shoulder.
She sneezes, and in Thora and Nik’s abrupt silence, the sound muffles—but not a hundred-percent.
We cage our breaths. Rigid. Staring at the curtain. They drop their voices to inaudible whispers, and their footsteps near.
Closer.
Closer.
Curtain hooks scratch the metal pole, plastic fabric whipping to the side. It’s not ours. It’s to the left of us.
Their paranoia radiates as strong as our panic.
And then they whisper and begin to retreat. Leaving the showers.
Look, I don’t feel like we dodged a bullet. We’re gripping fiercely, ragingly, onto an unconquerable mountainside—and instead of falling, I just learned th
at my brother is climbing nearly the same one.
Act Twenty-Eight
Luka Kotova
25 Days to Infini’s Premiere
On the indoor cobblestone walk, I pass a Masquerade gift shop—and then I skid to a stop for no apparent reason. A family of four rolls their suitcases past me to the elevators, and I turn my head, staring down the gift shop’s glass walls and door.
Pressure, like three-tons of weight, bears on my chest. I uncoil my earbuds that are wrapped around my phone and stick them in. I play “Time” by Jungle and nod my head to the beat, moving forward. Onto the casino floor.
I try to breathe. I blink a few times and switch to my Broadway playlist. I try to loosen up.
Not even a minute later, I stop again.
I look back, rubbing my lips. The weight isn’t gone. Something itches at me. Like a bug stuck in my eardrum. I need to do it.
I need to do it.
Fuck it.
I rotate and aim for the gift shop. Popping my earbuds out, I shove my phone in the pocket of my navy gym pants.
Inside the tiny gift shop, the twenty-something blonde employee flips through a magazine and welcomes an old couple behind me.
I’m invisible as I peruse racks of snacks and essentials like batteries and toothbrushes. Knowing where the security cameras are positioned, I set my back to them and act like I’m examining the ingredients of Chex Mix. I’m actually pocketing three packs of spearmint gum and orange Tic Tacs.
I’m not afraid.
I’m not even out of breath. It took me years to understand what I’m searching for, and it’s not the excitement or adrenaline rush. It’s this next part.
I turn around, and as I leave the store, I look back just once. The blonde employee smiles brightly at the old woman, and I think, I got out unscathed. Relief floods me.
Fills me.
Weight lifts off of me for this moment, and I breathe deeply.
And I smile, unwrapping and popping a piece of gum in my mouth. Ignoring the guilt.
Not many people are congesting the casino, especially for a Saturday afternoon. I saunter further through the rows of slots and velvet-topped tables. Looking for my little brother.
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