His right hand warms my cheek. Our eyes flit to each other’s lips. Now I kind of want him to kiss me. And not because of Robby.
Luka whispers, “I can play into his joke just to shut him up.”
I nod stronger.
He inches closer and kisses me full-force, my lips sting, and his hand dives to the small of my back. My skin heats like electricity zipping down my neck, breasts, hips, and lower…I pulse, beginning to throb.
Luka smiles, his tongue tangling with mine as we draw even nearer. His body thrums against my body, and he cups my ass.
I start laughing for no reason.
Robby cat-calls us with a whistle and drifts away.
Luka wraps his arms around my shoulders, laughing too. “You know I’m going to grab your ass more often now.”
Luka Kotova likes hearing me laugh. “You’re too much.” I control my laugh and make a grave face.
He mimics my expression. “You always say that. Too much of what?”
“Everything,” I say seriously.
“Evidence?”
“I could spend hours detailing why, but not while I stare at you.” While he makes me smile.
Luka playfully turns his back to me, and then checks me out over his shoulder. “What about now?”
I shake my head, almost about to burst into another laugh, and he’s made me forget all about the sadness surrounding Infini. For a moment at least. My eyes suddenly well, and I can’t describe the source of my emotion.
It just surges.
He spins back, noticing. “Come here, Bay.” His voice is tender, and he brings me into another warm hug. I wrap my arms around his waist.
“Date night!” someone shouts.
I suddenly gape at Luka.
“Date night!” That’s a Kotova, jeering at us about our date night later.
I eye Luka. “You told who?”
He kisses my lips, my temple, my cheek, and he whispers, “Everyone.”
I wear a more heartfelt smile, swooning at him. We sway now like we’re slow-dancing. “Because you can,” I realize.
He nods, a powerful, assured nod. “Because we can.” We can tell the whole world we’re in a serious relationship. I inhale a freeing breath, and that’s when Sergei approaches, an envelope in hand.
Sergei opens his mouth, but an old female AE doc calls Luka over, “I need to do a short examination on you, Luka.”
“I had a physical last month,” Luka says while we separate. I tighten my towel around my chest, and Luka fits his baseball cap over his tousled hair, hiding his gaze from Sergei.
“It’s a follow-up to that one. Just step over here.” She ties her wispy gray locks back, and Sergei and I watch her lead Luka to the medicine cabinet.
I put my towel to my lips, nervous.
Early this morning, he stole a coffee canister from the grocery store. He helped me put away my veggie kits and protein bars—and I had to ask, “How bad is it?” We were both grabbing the refrigerator handle, frozen.
He knew I was referring to his kleptomania. “What kind of scale do you want?” he asked.
“One being you…”
“…have no desire to steal,” he helped me out. “Ten I can’t stop thinking about it?”
I nodded.
Luka contemplated for a second. “Maybe a six, six-point-five. It’s like…about as bad as when I was…” He winces through his teeth, trying to find an age. “Eight-years-old?”
“I didn’t know you then.”
He smiles. “No kidding.”
I tried not to smile back, but it was hard. “The other thing is worse right now though, isn’t it?” I meant his bulimia, but he hates the clinical names, so I always avoid them in conversation.
“Yeah, it’s not good.” Luka sighed deeply and spun his Knicks hat backwards. “I’m trying to get ahold of it. I’ve just felt out of control lately.” He chewed his bottom lip once in thought and nodded, coming to terms with that. “You sad?” he asked.
I made a so-so motion with my hand, and then we hugged, our hands dropping from the refrigerator, the door thudding shut.
My cheek to his chest, I asked, “Therapy?” I wondered if he was going.
“I never found a therapist in Vegas.”
“You never tried?”
He shook his head, blinking a couple times. “No. I don’t know, maybe I should.” He used to go when he was little, and he returned in New York around when I first met him, on-and-off. AE used to pay a portion, but Luka mentioned that his health insurance didn’t cover it anymore.
Sometimes it’s easy to use money as a reason not to go, but therapy helps us both a lot.
I nudged him lightly and said, “You should try.”
“…I’ll think about it.”
I replay our talk in my head as the female doctor nears Luka.
“Can you open your mouth, please?” she asks him.
He looks nonchalant as he lowers his jaw, mouth wide. She peers down his throat with a medical instrument and light.
“You’re worried about him?” Sergei asks me.
I frown. “Yeah, he’s my…” God, I’m smiling already. “Boyfriend.” It’s overwhelming being able to say that.
“No, I mean…” Sergei gestures from Luka to me and back again. “You know what he deals with. He’s told you?”
I nod, and I look at the ceiling as I find the answer. “I think he told me when I was…thirteen? Yeah, thirteen.” It was really hard for Luka to describe what had happened, which is why I don’t ever repeat his past to anyone. Not even to someone who may already have the answers.
Like Sergei.
He scratches his short hair. “I should’ve known you two were together.” His shoulders rise. “I just thought Luka would’ve told me that he had feelings for you. I never thought he legally couldn’t say anything.”
“I doubt Luka minds anymore,” I say. “He’s not really a grudge-holder.”
“My apology is for you.”
My brows jump.
Sergei laughs, more at himself than at me. “No one thinks I can apologize?”
I must not be the first stop on the Sergei Kotov apology tour. “It’s just apologies usually begin with I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” he says honestly. “For more than one thing.” He passes me an envelope.
My lips part. “Is this…?” I feel the outline of money without opening the flap. The grand for my misplaced box. I paid AE and depleted my bank account months ago.
“It’s not all I owe you. I thought I could pay in installments. A hundred a month.”
“I’m confused.” I slowly shake my head to clear cobwebs. “Why now?”
Sergei rubs his throat. “It’s not easy admitting that I’m in the wrong. Before I transferred to Infini and moved to Vegas—I honestly did not know this about myself. I guess confronting old choices puts your life into perspective…” He pauses. “And I’ve been mentally revisiting conversations and things I’ve done, and I realized I was stubborn and…an ass here. So.” He motions to the money. “That’s a start to an I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” I say with a small smile. “I accept, thanks.” Do we shake? Do we hug?
I guess I have to start with: what is Sergei to me exactly?
A co-worker?
My boyfriend’s older brother?
Luka is on okay terms with him. They haven’t built a close-knit relationship, but he’s not cold-shouldering Sergei like Timo.
To my knowledge, Timo hasn’t spoken to Sergei since The Red Death, and Sergei has respected his little brother’s space.
Their disputes aren’t mine though. I want to be friendly to someone who’s been kind, so I extend a hand to shake.
Sergei smiles and shakes back.
“I have it under control,” Luka says strongly to the doctor. Our eyes fix back on him.
She sighs. “You’ll need to start writing down everything you eat and your feelings about the food before and after consumption. I’ll g
ive you a journal before you leave. I believe you did this before when you were…” She flips into his chart. “Six-years-old—”
“I am not that bad,” he refutes, turning his back on us.
Sergei cracks his knuckles, on edge.
“I think it’s best, Luka,” she says. “Stay there, let me get you a journal.”
“Baylee.”
I jump so much at the sound of Geoffrey’s voice, right by my ear. I end up bumping into Sergei, but he puts a hand on my shoulder, steadying me.
My lungs just shot out of my body, and Geoffrey wears zero humor.
Before I ask what, he says, “You’ll need to stay late tonight.”
Today is an “off” day—no performances. So Luka and I came in at 5:00 a.m. on the dot to workout and practice so we could have the night off. I reiterate this to Geoffrey, and he cuts me off mid-sentence with, “Shut up.”
“That’s not necessary, Geoffrey,” Sergei tells him in a controlled voice.
Luka abandons the medicine cabinet to reach us. “What’s going on?” His hand slips into mine.
My ribs hurt; I’m so stiff. “He’s saying we need to stay late.”
Luka shakes his head. “Why?”
“I need you both on trampoline tonight,” Geoffrey explains. “We’re changing your eight-ball, seven-up pirouette.”
“I can’t do nine balls,” I emphasize, my pulse racing in fear. It’s not possible. I’ve never done that before, not even on the ground. And any big changes we make now are risky. The show has already begun.
“Did I specify nine balls? No, I didn’t,” Geoffrey snaps. “You’re not going to sit on Luka’s shoulders anymore.” He takes one beat. “You’re going to stand.”
Shit.
Shit.
I rub my eyes, already tired at the thought of nailing that trick down while standing on his shoulders. And the timing—God, the timing.
Perrot would tell us to deal with this change. So I nod. “Okay.” All I can do is agree and work hard again and again.
Ignore the stress.
Luka asks, “Can we start working on it tomorrow?”
“No. You start tonight.” He laughs once, his lips hiking, almost mockingly. “Why? Do you have a date or something?”
My face drops. He heard the Kotovas shouting date night at us.
Didn’t he?
Luka restrains emotion, not giving him more satisfaction, but Geoffrey spins around like he won a round in a battle and saunters out of the physical therapy room.
He ruined our baseball date night on purpose. “God, I hate him,” I say.
Luka nods, his jaw muscle constricting. “Me too.”
SUMMER
Act Forty-Six
Luka Kotova
“Be responsible today.”
That declaration has rained down from Vince, Aerial Ethereal’s marketing director and no longer a Corporate spy.
(Hallelujah.)
He’s dreaming though. I may suck at math, but adding a hundred AE artists + the hottest July afternoon + free drinks + a massive Masquerade pool with hotel guests = a scenario with 0 responsibility.
In the same breath, Vince said, “Have fun.” I’m sincerely trying to figure out how responsibility and fun intersect on the Venn diagram.
Three Amour artists understand the decree well enough. Taking running starts, my cousins do full-in full-outs, splashing into the water and garnering thunderous cheers from guests. The DJ increases the volume of a remix to a summer pop song, and people cheer and dance.
The Masquerade hosts very few promo parties a year, but when they do, they always ask AE artists to perform and to “blend in and drink and have fun”—that way we’ll surprise the guests when we finally unleash a trick. Ticket sales normally skyrocket after these events.
Mandatory or not, stressed or relaxed—I don’t bail on pool parties. The Nevada summer is too brutally hot.
This year, it’s even better. I wade in the five-foot end and Baylee is standing on my shoulders, not a cousin.
I clasp her calves, completely secured, and she juggles eight mesh balls in a clean arc. She lets me catch one that falls, and I toss it back up to her.
In our section of the pool, the inebriated, sunburned guests stare open-mouthed and clap their hands to their margaritas and beers.
I meander around the pool, the water cool on my skin, and I ache to dip under. I know Bay must be scorching from the heat. No clouds in sight.
I chew a piece of gum and eye a dude who zigzags in the water towards us, his trucker hat says beer me.
“You have to stay back, dude!” I yell over the music, my voice nonchalant.
He floats slowly toward us now.
I almost laugh, and I look up.
In a red Adidas swimsuit, Baylee looks beautiful and in her element. She lowers, sitting on my shoulders, and she never breaks tempo. Balls sail in a new crisscrossing pattern, and I catch sight of her smile—which has been more fleeting this summer.
Infini isn’t selling out. We fill more seats than Amour, but our auditorium holds more bodies. There’s mutterings about music changes, too.
On top of that, Geoffrey has given us almost no time to recuperate and breathe. We’re both losing precious sleep. I’m down to five hours a night, and she’s not much better. But she works herself harder than me, deathly afraid of Infini’s end.
I run my hand up her leg, and the trucker hat dude yells at her, “I wanna hold your balls!”
I lost count of how many times she’s been heckled. I raise a hand at him in warning as he creeps closer, shaking my head.
(Drunk people, honestly. I have no other words than that.)
Baylee forces a smile. “Do you know how to juggle?!”
“Yeah!” he laughs and reaches out to grab Bay.
I splash him in the face. “That’s not an invitation! Back up!”
He drifts back a little, and I end up walking backwards, putting space between him and Baylee. Look, the place is swarming with security and I’ve dealt with these kinds of personalities my entire life. My level of paranoia is low, confidence high, and I’m too used to this to be an overprotective, over-alarmed asshole.
“If you can juggle, then get your own balls!” Baylee shouts, her tone serious.
He puts his sunglasses on top of his trucker hat, laughing. “Baby, I can show you my balls. I have ‘em right here!”
Baylee raises her brows, still juggling, and she watches the drunk Vegas guest out of curiosity. It’s entertaining to see how far they’re willing to take their wild vacation.
(What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. For them. Not me. This is my whole life.)
One second later, he actually commits.
Swim trunks down, dick out. Luckily, we are all saved by the image since five-feet of his body is submerged under water.
Girls squeal nearby and splash him for exposing himself. Others unhook their bikini tops.
“Skinny dipping!” a guy hollers, and more swimsuits fly off.
My hand slides up Bay’s thigh. “You started that, you realize?”
“And Brenden said I fail at fun and relaxation,” she says seriously. “Here, I just started a naked pool party.” That must’ve been a recent conversation with her brother.
She does fail at relaxation. Around my neck, her muscles are tensed up again, even as I rub her thigh. Bay lets her balls drop in her palms.
I hoist her off my shoulders, and she instantly dunks beneath the water and then breaches the surface.
“You okay?” I ask, my hands on the curve of her hips. My back is to the trucker hat dude, shielding her from him, and we drift into the masses, their fists pumping at a popular song.
We bypass the in-pool bar. Bay switched her antidepressants, under advice from her therapist, and the new kind have bad side effects with alcohol, so I don’t ask if she wants any liquor.
Baylee drapes her arms over my shoulders. “I want to be happy.” She tries to release a heavy breath. “
I just can’t stop thinking about what happens if Marc says Infini is done. It’s not just the music and my mom. It’s so much more.”
I frown. “Like what?”
She shrugs. “Where do I go? What do I do? It’s the only show I’ve ever been in.”
“Krasavitsa.” I give her a look like it’s obvious what would happen.
“Don’t say what I think you’re going to say. It’s so farfetched.”
I say it. “AE will hire you for another show, and it’s only unbelievable to you because it hasn’t happened before.”
She seems uncertain.
“They will hire you again.”
Baylee leans her head back like her head weighs a million pounds and groans. “You don’t know that. I’m not a Kotova.”
“They will,” I say again, my lips rising.
She smiles off of my smile. “I’m being realistic here.” Her smile leaves really fast. “All so when I’m without a job and a roof, I’m not crushed to pieces.”
“Look.” I cup her face in my hands, and her worried eyes meet my assured ones. “That’s not going to happen. I’m not letting Corporate crush you. I’m not, okay?”
She nods, and I wonder if she really believes me.
Do I even believe I have that kind of control?
For now, I’m going to pretend to.
* * *
I thought I picked a somewhat quiet cabana to disappear into with Baylee. Not to screw around, we’re literally sleeping. I wake to familiar voices.
“My quota of drunk old men has been reached, surpassed, and pissed on profusely,” John says.
I open my eyes and make sure they haven’t woken up my girlfriend. My arms are around Baylee while she sleeps on my chest, head tucked in the crook of my arm to block out the sunlight. She’s practically passed out, needing this.
“Old men must attract more old men,” Timo says, his smile breathing inside his words.
They walk into view and nearly approach my cabana, but they’re distracted by each other’s presence.
(I’m not kidding.)
Timo is checking out John like he’s not his boyfriend that he sees every day. And John is fit. I mean, a six-pack, toned, and he’s bigger built than my little brother who has lean muscles. His dark trunks contrast my brother’s neon-orange Speedo.
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