Amour Amour (Aerial Ethereal #1)(56)

My laugh begins at the sight of hers, and she shakes her head, her stomach heaving with humor. She has to hold herself upright.

“I can’t…” She flashes her palm like she has to step away, heading to another couple who wave her down.

I reach over the bar for a little square napkin and pat my neck, my hair in an edgy French braid. (Camila did it for me.)

“Your cousin likes me.” Timo cocks his head at John.

“She likes everyone. This comes from a place of love when I say that she has the worst sense of judgment. For everything, really. Including people.”

“Hey,” I say. “She likes me.”

“And you’re sharing a bedroom with a Kotova,” he rebuts. “That kind of puts your quality at the bottom of the barrel.”

“I’m sleeping on the couch,” I emphasize.

“Wait,” Timo cuts in with a confused look. “You don’t sleep in Nik’s bed?”

What is with everyone and this? I’m not abnormal. “I…” I trail off as his frown deepens.

“Do you not like him or something?” He scratches the back of his head, more downtrodden than usual. He didn’t phrase the question as: does Nikolai not like you or something? As if it was all my choice to sleep on the couch.

“I mean, he’s just training me.” Those are Nikolai’s words too. He’s said them to me before.

Timo looks just as perplexed as I feel. “I thought he liked you.”

I rock back, my heart convulsing. It’s like someone fisted my internal organs. “What gave you that idea?” I think I want it to be true.

I shouldn’t.

He’s just training you, Thora. Stay concentrated.

Goals. I have goals.

John stares at the ceiling like this conversation is killing him.

“You’re living with him,” Timo says. “Duh, Thora James.”

I don’t feel like I’m so oblivious. I just think we’re all more confused than they’d have us believe.

John suddenly stands and nears Timo, only an inch taller than him. “What is this?” Clutching his beer, he gestures to the three glow necklaces.

“I’m single, complicated and taken,” Timo replies with a burgeoning smile.

John looks to me. “He’s a liar.” Then to Timo. “Seriously, you’re a liar.”

“Or I’m just a mystery, old man.”

John swiftly snaps off the red and green glow necklaces, leaving Timo with only blue. “Look at that, I solved your pathetic mystery.”

Timo licks his bottom lip and laughs. “You want me to be single, John?” This took a turn. I stare between them, my eyes pinging back and forth with intrigue.

John puts the beer to his lips. “I’m out of your league, Timo.”

“If you say so.”

“TAT! TAT! TAT!” The room yells over the pumping music, and my heart double skips. John groans at the commotion, but his feet carry him closer to the spectacle.

Timo clasps my hand, tugging me along. I’ve somehow slid deeper into the Kotova circle. He slings his arm around my shoulder and follows John Ruiz. “He’s a walking contradiction,” Timo says, amused. His eyes lower to John’s ass, squeezed in a pair of dark-colored jeans.

I just ogled John’s butt. I scrunch my face. That was not on my to-do list tonight.

I don’t have to ask Timo to clarify his statement. John is cynical, pessimistic, claiming to be drama-free, but he seeks it out and thrives on watching it. He’s also popular enough that three people scoot over, awarding us the closest view.

Timo wedges between John and me, his other arm swooping around John’s shoulders. I’m shocked when John doesn’t push him off.

My gaze casually drifts to the open circle, where the crowds have parted for Nikolai. And the minute I see another girl in it, my whole face tightens. Nikolai leads the twenty-something brunette to the lone chair, his hand on the small of her back.

His hand on the small of her back.

This shouldn’t marbleize me, but I’m cold and unmoving.

“Fifty bucks she picks a tattoo,” Timo says.

“Don’t you do enough betting on the fucking floor?” John snaps.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Timo nods to me. “Thora?”

I can’t answer. My muscles coil, taut and inflexible. Nikolai sits on the chair first, his intense gaze never deterring from the girl’s. Her blue glow necklace contrasts her red mini-dress, one with sparkly stiletto heels. He says directions to her, not audible from where I stand.

Then she lies over his lap, hiking up the bottom of her dress to reveal her ass.

My stomach compresses without my permission—my heart on a strange, foreign descent. A burly man with a thick neck passes Nikolai a tattoo gun.

“I would’ve won,” Timo announces, disappointment lacing his voice. Though he squeezes my shoulder like cheer up, Thora James. It’s okay.

I must look as horrible as I feel.

“Everyone wins eventually,” John says, his tone less hostile than usual. “It doesn’t mean you can’t lose.”

Nikolai places his hand on the girl’s ass, concentrating on the needle as it digs into her flesh. He tells her something, his lips rising in a charismatic smile that lights his gray eyes. And she laughs. I want to look away. I don’t want to watch this—because it hurts.