Amour Amour (Aerial Ethereal #1)(73)

His voice slices my gut.

“You must be the best friend,” Nikolai says with a great deal of disdain. If looks could kill, Shay would be dead five times over.

Shay layers on a murderous glare of his own. “And she’s never said one thing about you.” Because I knew you’d react this way.

I raise my hands between them, standing directly in the middle of two different worlds. I wonder if they will ever bridge, if they ever can. “Please, let me explain.” More and more people filter over here, with drinks in hand, to watch this “fight” that’s become a bigger spectacle than a wet T-shirt contest.

“Sure,” Shay says, his voice caged with hurt. “Explain to me how the Thora James I’ve known for eight fucking years could throw away a college scholarship for a guy. One year, Thora, you had one year left.”

“He’s training me.” Tears sting my eyes. “Okay, he’s helping me.” I am pleading with him to understand, to picture what I do. But my viewpoint is a solitary one.

“Bullshit.” He points at Nikolai now. “I see the way he’s looking at you.”

“I didn’t leave everything for a guy!” I shout back.

“Then tell me I’m wrong! Tell me that you’re not with him.”

I struggle for breath, swallowing air before I say, “I can’t…”

He rests his hands on his head like I sucker-punched him. “Goddammit, Thora. Goddammit.”

“I’m the same person.” I haven’t changed in the way he believes. My dreams are all the same.

He drops his arms. “Wake up. You’re never going to be an aerialist in a world-renowned troupe. Do you hear how crazy that is?” I’m shaking, fighting back tears. “He’s giving you false hope so he can keep you around, probably to fuck you—”

“You’re a coward.” Nikolai’s hollow voice nearly silences the muttering crowds. He’s by my side, and then he protectively passes me, brushing my hand like saying I’m here for you before he takes a few steps ahead and faces Shay. “If you’re going to slander me, speak directly to me, not to her.”

Shay’s doubt leeches my brain. His belief isn’t true. It’s not true. Nikolai’s intentions are as pure as mine. I know they are, in my heart. I know it.

“Yeah, I have something to say to you,” Shay grits.

“Ooooh,” people in the pool echo, hands cupped over their mouths to create the noise. I realize I’ve shuffled to the side, in order to see both Shay and Nikolai from a spectator position, but I’m still closer to them than anyone else at the pool party.

“Leave Thora alone,” Shay sneers. “If you like her at all, you’ll stop feeding her bullshit—”

“It’s not bullshit.” Nikolai glares. “She has the ability to be better.”

“With your help, right?” Shay nods like he sees right through him. My stomach clenches. It’s not true.

“Yes,” Nikolai says lowly. “With my help. I’ve spent twenty years training on the apparatus she loves. I’ve spent my entire life in the circus. I have knowledge and experience that she needs. There is nothing for her in Ohio.” Anger protrudes the veins in his arms and neck, his muscles flexing.

My throat swells. Behind Nikolai, I now notice all who gathers. Not just Timo. There’s Luka. And Dimitri—there are dozens…no, several dozen athletes, all broad-shouldered, strong and hard-jawed. Gray eyes.

Most of them have those gray eyes. Kotovas. Cousins. Brothers. His family.

They stand as though they’re ready to back him. For anything. For everything.

“Her whole life is in Ohio,” Shay retorts. “She doesn’t belong here.”

Shay is my family. He is the one familiarity I have.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” people begin to chant, not only in the pool but around us.

I shake my head. No. No one is fighting.

The Kotovas start speaking in Russian, shouting over each other and the hostile encouragements. Nikolai rotates a fraction and yells a few foreign words back to them.

I meet Shay’s concerned gaze that fixes on me. His eyes soften so much. You know him. For years. You know him. His voice is drowned by the crowd, but I read his lips: Come home. He’s telling me to come home. With him.

My eyes burn, restraining combative emotions.

“Thora,” I hear Nikolai’s loud voice in the mass.

I turn my head.

His sincerity, his intensity, it rips right through me. “Don’t leave. Please.”

I inhale a pained breath. I’m warring with my dreams and with reality. Is it courageous to stay here or is it just a fool’s chase? I’m not sure…

“Thora,” Nikolai forces, my attention his once more, “you can succeed.”

Shay’s hands ball into fists. “Says the guy who’s been sleeping with her.”

“Fight! Fight! Fight!”

My stomach knots and unknots at Shay’s disillusion and the real fact. I haven’t slept with Nikolai. That’s not what this is about. In the pit of my ear, I hear his words spoken from months ago.

It’s wasted courage. And wasted love. You shouldn’t have to waste those things.

I can do this.

You can do this, Thora. It’s not over. It doesn’t have to be.