Amour Amour (Aerial Ethereal #1)(67)

He stops for a second, staring faraway at the memory. It’s not often that he wears this look. It strangely pulls at my lungs.

“My closest aunt and uncle, Dimitri’s parents, were recruited for Infini, which would go to New York for three years and then move to Vegas. So my extended family would be split for the first time. We all couldn’t be in the same show, the same place, and unfortunately, Katya, Timo, and Luka had no choice where they ended up.”

“What…?” I breathe.

His jaw locks for a second, and he breathes through his nose. “My parents,” he starts. “They wanted stability for the younger kids. They were ten, twelve and thirteen at the time.” He looks up, at the night sky, blanketed with stars. “It left Peter, me, and Sergei with a choice. Somnio would pay better. Somnio was more elite. And it’d award us more freedom.” When he takes another long pause, sipping his wine, I digest every syllable, every word.

“You were the only one who chose to be with them,” I realize. At twenty, he decided to take on his parent’s responsibility instead of living his own life. It’s not only admirable—that is courageous. There are tears in my eyes that he can’t see. He’s staring out at the city.

“Peter was eighteen, he wanted to travel,” he says. “Sergei was twenty-two, he had no desire to stay with our younger siblings. I wasn’t going to leave them and hope that our aunt and uncle would pay attention. They have five kids of their own.”

“So when Somnio ended…”

“Noctis began,” he says. “So did Amour and Viva.”

It cemented the fact that they’d be apart much longer than they might’ve intended.

Maybe that’s why Kayta is so upset. She could’ve been counting down to Somnio’s closing night, in hopes that her parents would return then.

“Do you miss them?” I ask as he turns back to me.

“Some days,” he says quietly. He finishes off his wine, and a phone rings (not just a text), the default tone. He digs into his pocket and answers the cell in Russian. His face morphs into that familiar anger, his eyes narrow and muscles tensing.

He shouts something and growls in irritation. He repeats a couple of the same words, over and over, and then he shuts off the phone and rises quickly, pulling out his wallet. My pulse throbs in worry. Our food hasn’t even arrived, the date ending early.

“What’d you say about Luka—being generous?” He shakes his head, tossing a few bills and then extending his hand for me. “He’s generously wearing on me.”

“He stole something,” I assume, as I rise and take his hand.

He leads me out of the restaurant, in such a hurry that I have trouble keeping up with his lengthy stride. “He’s sitting in jail,” he says, so lowly that I wonder if I heard wrong.

“What?” My eyes bug.

He hails down a cab. “He’s in jail.”

Okay, I heard right. My pulse kicks up—and I wonder what he could’ve stolen. Or if it was something worse. We slip into the taxi together, and Nikolai leans close and suddenly kisses me.

It’s a new kind of kiss.

Soft, gentle but more full. His hand is lost beneath my hair, clutching me, and I inhale with him, my arms on his. His lips brush my cheek, then my ear, to whisper, “In case I forget, know that I loved tonight, with you. No matter what happens from here.”

He’s about to turn on his protective setting, the one where he’s all severe. The warm sentiments buried low beneath.

I touch his rough jaw, my hand small. “What happens from here?” I ask softly, my words sounding more sexual than I ever believed they could.

He tucks my frizzy strands of hair behind my ear. “I’ll tell you a truth myshka,” he whispers, his lips closing over my cheek before touching mine. And very lowly, he breathes, “It’s all a mystery to me.”



*



I stand with Luka by the jail’s tinted glass, double doors. He hardly says a word, his gaze literally planted on the ugly brown carpet. We wait for Nikolai, who fills out paperwork at the front desk, out of earshot. Apparently Luka tried to shoplift a four-hundred dollar snow globe.

“Who sells snow globes in July?” I ask aloud.

Luka finally smiles, albeit a weak one. “It was a collector’s item or something.” He’s not even sure what he stole? He inspects my outfit for the first time: the teal dress, the glitzy necklace and my mascara and pink lipstick. His face contorts with remorse, especially as he looks to his brother. “You were on a date?”

“Sort of,” I say, trying not to make him feel worse.

He buries his face in his hands. “Shit…I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He’s really lucky that he only has to pay a fine this time. “Why the snow globe?”

“Huh?” he frowns in confusion.

This can’t be an odd question. Right? I mean, everyone would ask this. “Out of everything you could steal, why that?”

“Oh…” He sighs and shrugs, his shoulders tense. “It just seemed harder to steal than the deck of cards.”

I guess he takes things for the thrill and excitement, the adrenaline rush maybe. Which is strange, considering he’s surrounded by death-defying apparatuses. “A television would’ve been hard to pocket,” I ponder. “Way more useful than a snow globe.”