Surprisingly, he shakes his head. “No.”
“No?”
He spins to me now, his features harsh, his glare still daggering his eyes. It would be harder to meet if I wasn’t so curious. “I was born into this,” he explains. “I’m a fourth generation acrobat. It’s more common than you might think.”
I believe him.
Then he briefly drops his gaze, trying to hide his incensed emotions maybe, or at least trying not to direct his aggravation my way. He rests his elbow on the bar, fixating on the crowd, his fingers tightened around his glass.
I hesitate. “You’re angry.” He doesn’t answer. So I add, “You think I’m stupid for being here.” To try again so soon.
He takes a sip. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “I think you’re brave,” he tells me. “But there’s a greater chance this city will strip whatever innocence you have left before you succeed, Thora.” He tilts his head at me. “And there’s a good chance you’ll fail. I have trouble imagining a girl like you on the brink of misery in a city that doesn’t want her. So yes, I’m angry. But not at you.”
My stomach roils. These truths are hard to hear, I’ll admit that. But I can’t leave. I lick my lips, tasting the tequila. “I can’t leave,” I say aloud, resolute on this decision. “I’m not turning back now. I’ll spend years regretting it.” I’ll go home empty-handed. With nothing but a big mistake on my chest, worn like a badge of shame.
He finishes off his second drink and slides it on the bar. “I used to be like you.”
“Brave?” I wonder.
“Idealistic.”
“What happened?” I ask, my drink cold in my hand.
“I grew up,” he tells me, a swift kick. “I have more responsibilities. There are people I can’t afford to leave behind.”
“Hey, Thora!” Camila calls out, stealing my attention. She slips to my side of the bar, but her presence only builds a strain between Nikolai and me. Like last week, her green glow necklace rests on her brown curls. Her gaze floats to the Russian guy. “Hey, sexy, don’t you have a bet to get to?”
“I’m taking a break.” And then he rests his palm on the small of my back. I cage a breath the longer he touches me out of the blue. “Thora has been telling me about her new job.” Each word sounds like liquid sex all of a sudden. He can layer on the smooth charm too well.
Camila’s lips rise, coated in purple lipstick. “Oh yeah, she’s a vixen at Phantom now.” The bride-to-be waves Camila down at the other side of the bar. She sighs heavily and focuses on me. “I need to talk to you about something important. So don’t move.” Her voice pitches a bit, and worry infiltrates my frozen state of being.
“I thought we were just celebrating my first week here.”
“That too,” she calls out as she darts away.
Nikolai studies her, way more attentive than me. His hand ascends to my shoulder, and he squeezes once, almost in comfort. “How long have you known her for?”
I shrug. “Just the week.”
“I don’t think she invited you here to celebrate.”
She does seem nervous. So Camila might’ve asked me here for another reason. That doesn’t mean it has to be a bad reason, right? I find myself chugging my drink distractedly, and I cough into my hand at the sharpness. As I go to take another sip to clear my throat, a very senseless act, Nikolai covers my glass with his hand.
Then he flags down a bartender as easily as he did the first two times. “I need a water.”
She’s quick to fill another glass, even plopping in a lemon. When she disappears, he passes it to me. I gratefully switch drinks, opting for the nonalcoholic one.
To lessen the tension, I change to a lighter topic. “Tattoo anyone special?”
“Everyone is special,” he says. I try to catch his sarcasm, but it’s hidden in his deep voice. I wonder if he’s still imagining me being sucked in Vegas’ black hole of sins and broken dreams.
“Anyone memorable then?” I wonder.
“There was the forehead tattoo...”
My jaw unhinges.
His brows shoot up. “Joking.” And a smile pulls at his lips, a charismatic one.
I must be scowling because he gives me this usual stare like you seem mad. I’ve been asked “what’s wrong?” for merely walking along campus with headphones in. I thought I looked fine, but my face sucks at conveying my emotions properly.
He tilts my chin up with two fingers, his eyes doing most of the smiling now, searching me. “What black eyes you have…”
“All the better to devour you with.” That wasn’t me. I’m not that witty. Camila is back with a bigger, wider grin than she’s worn all night. “Are you two friends?” She radiates at that possibility. And I swear she glances at my nipple, recalling that he was the one who pierced me.
Neither of us answers. We’re not exactly friends, but we’re not strangers anymore either. The music switches to a louder dance beat by Jennifer Lopez.
“This is so perfect!” Camila shouts over the song. She stretches over the bar to talk to us. “I’ve been stressing out all day, trying to find you a place to crash.”
The bottom of my stomach collapses.
What?
I struggle to ask at first, but I find my voice. “What happened to your couch?” My throat throbs. I told her that I’d be out of her place in a week and a half, the day I receive my first paycheck. She said that was fine.
“My extended family is here, and they want to stay closer to the strip. So they’re going to use my place. They surprised me with the news this morning. I’m really sorry.” Her green-shadowed eyes apologize enough. “John’s brothers are crashing at his place, so he has a full house too. I’ve called a few girlfriends, but no one is answering tonight.”
I’m essentially on my own.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, wracking my brain for the cost of a room at The Masquerade. I can tap into my savings until my paycheck comes in, I think. But what if my parents snoop into my account and see what I’ve spent my money on? They believe I’m receiving free room and board, so they’d question the charge. It’s my only choice though. “I can figure it out. A few nights here won’t be that much.”
“No, no,” she forces with giant eyes. “I would feel terrible if you had to spend your money because of this.” She reaches out and latches onto Nikolai’s wrist. “You’re friends with Thora, right?”
“Best friends,” he says deeply. And he curves his strong arm around the slant of my hips. He tugs me to his side. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Cardiac arrest is in sight again.
I feel winded. I look up at him for answers, but he pins his focus on Camila. Not me.
“So you won’t mind?”
“Not at all,” he says. Wait…what is happening here? “I have a spare couch.”
Is he offering—
“Thank you so much.” Camila releases her grip on him, and she falls to the flats of her feet. She nods to me. “I’m so busy tonight, but I’ll see you later this week, right?”
I nod, realizing she’s telling me goodbye. She waves before she darts over to someone in a suit-and-tie, decked out in blue glow sticks.
Nikolai’s hand rises to the back of my neck, a place he’s fond of touching, I’ve concluded. “You’re glaring at me,” he states.
“This is my confused look.” I scrunch my face to relax the muscles. Frustrated, I give up the lame attempt.
He’s trying hard not to smile. “Let’s go, my demon,” he says, tossing cash on the bar counter.
“Go where?”
He pockets his wallet. “My place. You can sleep on my couch for a few days, whatever you need.”
I shake my head on instinct, my heart and stomach performing intricate choreography. “Why are you helping me?”
The muscles in his arms flex: stiff, unbending posture. “I feel responsible for your wellbeing,” he says. “And don’t ask me why. Because I don’t have an answer.” I watch his gray irises peruse
my features in a languid stroke, like he’s caressing my cheek.
Even outside the gym, he has serious bedroom eyes.
It’s almost too much to handle. I exhale a shallow breath. “Just tonight,” I tell him.
“Whatever you need,” he repeats. I wish I could tap into his mind, even for a moment. To see how he sees me. For as much as Nikolai conveys, he’s still a mystery.
And I’m the curious girl who’ll step into it. Time and time again.
Act Ten
1:52 a.m.
I’ve ultimately decided that with good luck comes bad luck. There isn’t plain good fortune, at least not for me. On our way to the lobby elevators, I stopped by the bathroom and discovered that I started my period. Worst timing, considering my suitcase is at Camila’s place and I only have one emergency tampon in my clutch purse.
My thoughts are tumbling on all the comfortable things I’m abandoning in her apartment. Maybe one of the hotel’s stores will have a survival kit. Including tampons. Please.
“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 ar
ound 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.”
Amour Amour Page 9
