Amour Amour (Aerial Ethereal #1)(42)

“That’d be impossible,” Nikolai says, his voice deep and threatening.

John rolls his eyes dramatically before giving me a half-wave and exiting out the main door. When he shuts it behind him, Nikolai spins back to me. As if nothing happened, he says, “Get dressed. We have practice.”

Right.

Practice with the God of Russia.

I wonder if I’m about to see why he’s called that.





Act Fifteen



Aerial Ethereal’s gym within the hotel & casino seems different now that I’m no longer auditioning. I still feel like an interloper, but not quite as much as before. Sunday morning, only a few coaches and choreographers linger by the glass office doors. Barely any artists practice now, and I have a feeling their main source of training comes from ten live shows a week.

Nikolai has spent the past fifteen minutes giving me a tutorial on circus equipment, probably waiting for my hangover to subside. I stumbled into his body three times, still slightly intoxicated. I’ve never been that black-out drunk before, so this is all new to me.

I’m just proud of myself for not vomiting.

He places his hands on my shoulders, rotating me towards the apparatus. I’ve been staring at the wall for two minutes. Dear God. He gestures to the red aerial silk that’s rigged on the eighty-foot ceiling.

“I know this one,” I tell him. “I had a makeshift silk in my garage.” My dad helped me rig it when I was fourteen. At the time, I think he believed it’d stay a hobby. If he thought it’d turn into a career aspiration, I wonder if he’d still lend a hand or allow it.

Nikolai pinches my chin and turns my head to face him. “That’s dangerous, Thora.”

“It was secure,” I defend as he releases his grip, my attention now his. It’s harder to capture when I’m hungover, and I can tell it’s frustrating him. “I never got hurt.”

“You could have,” he refutes. “You’ll work on this equipment. Don’t go to a different gym or build your own apparatuses.” I catch the concern in his voice, and I guess his paranoia comes somewhere fresh. Tatyana, his old partner, was injured for reasons unsaid.

Honestly, I’m too nervous to ask why. He’s been more than generous, and I’d rather not scare him off with my insensitive curiosity.

“This way.” He rests a hand on the small of my back, guiding me across the gym to a new apparatus, the aerial silk already out of view. We barely spent any time there, but maybe it’s awkward. It’s the discipline I lost out to Elena. It’s the one they’re using together, not me.

After showing me around the Russian swing, a large apparatus that oscillates front to back, allowing the flyer greater height, he brings me to a new kind of structure. Something built specifically for a show. It looks like a metal jungle gym, or metal cubes stacked together, bars and bars. And a teeterboard lies underneath.

“That’s dangerous,” I point out. I imagine someone jumping on the end of the teeterboard, catapulting an artist at the other end, like a springy seesaw. If they’re off, even a degree, they could smack into a metal bar. Hit their head. Land wrong on one—this is a death trap.

“It appears that way,” he says, “but there’s enough room for a triple layout. Every movement has to be precise and calculated, but that’s with anything here.” He takes a few steps to the side and watches me. “When you stare at this, what do you see?”

I take a deep breath and inspect the bars from afar. “A jungle gym?” I’m not sure if this is the right answer.

“What do you feel?” he asks.

I open my mouth, unsure of what I’ll even say. But I hesitate as he sits on the blue mats, his forearms resting on his knees. “Show me,” he says, about ten feet from the apparatus.

I look at him uncertainly and he nods in encouragement. Okay. I try to smother drunken, hungover Thora James as I approach the metal structure. Up close, it dwarfs me, looming like the bare bones of a futuristic house. I rub some chalk on my palms and grip one of the cold bars, a vertical beam.

Nikolai says a few Russian words to someone by the glass office, and they slip back inside. Melodic, sweet sounds fill the cavernous gym, the main speakers playing a familiar song that simultaneously soothes and quickens my pulse. I recognize it as “One Day I’ll Fly Away” from Moulin Rouge.

What do I feel?

I exhale another breath and use my upper-body strength to lift my torso horizontal. I concentrate on the angle and then reach out for another beam, this one like monkey bars. I jump onto it and then swing my body out, gaining more momentum.

There’s another bar in sight.

I think I can reach that and do a handstand or a double (unlikely).

“Drop down,” Nikolai suddenly says, the music cutting off. I obey his command instantly, my feet hitting the mat.

He’s beside me in seconds, his hand on the bar above my head. “That’s what you feel?” He says it like I might as well have been a soulless ghost.

“I’ve never been on this apparatus before…” I throw out an excuse.

He shouts a few Russian words at the lady near the office again. The song replays, and I watch him closely. He breathes as though he’s inhaling intangible things. Love. Magic and beauty. And then he climbs up one of the vertical beams with ease, standing on the top of the structure.