Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(131)

Luka extends his leg out, his muscle probably cramping. “Geoffrey needs to relax.”

We wear weak, nostalgic smiles as we’re subtly reminded about the sex toys and relax note someone slipped in Geoffrey’s office.

“Did I ever tell you,” Dimitri says, “I found out who gave him the blow-up doll and ball gag?”

My eyes grow, curious, but my phone buzzes. I search beneath the buried blankets while Luka asks, “Who?”

My ankle touches the hard phone cover, and I wrestle with the sheets for it.

“Sergei.”

I freeze. “Sergei?”

“No,” Luka rejects the idea. “Someone’s fucking with you.”

“If they were fucking with me, I’d know it,” Dimitri says. “You forget that I grew up with Serg. Once upon a time, I knew him better than I knew you.”

I find my phone. “Sergei is a rule-follower.”

“To the core,” Luka adds.

“Like me. Like Nikolai,” Dimitri agrees, “but Sergei also can’t turn down a dare. Erik dared him, and what do you know—it happened.”

Luka looks dumbfounded.

Dimitri flips off the lights, returning to his bunk. “You’re probably too young to remember all of Serg’s dares. Nikolai once got him to streak buck-ass naked through a Waffle House in Atlanta.”

The bed squeaks as he climbs on, the entire structure rumbling. I clutch Luka’s thigh in case the bed collapses.

I’ve imagined the super shitty scenario a dozen times, and I always feel terrible for Dimitri Kotova. On the flip side, he told us that if he dies underneath our bunk bed, he’ll haunt our asses for the rest of our lives.

It’s a seriously terrifying threat.

Luka calls down, “How old were all of you, back then at the Waffle House?”

“Fifteen, seventeen,” Dimitri says from below. Luka would’ve been nine-years-old at that time, and while he mentally sifts through his history, I click into the email notification.



Date: August 25th Subject: New Changes From: Geoffrey Lesage, Choreographer Cc: Baylee Wright

Baylee Wright:

Starting tomorrow, you will practice with machetes for the opening number. Clubs are over. (You will still perform with fire for your juggling act and use balls for the trampoline act.) I expect a completed, pristine performance with machetes on stage in one week.

Don’t fail this show.



Geoffrey Lesage Infini Choreographer [email protected]

I have no reaction. None at all.

I spin my screen to Luka, the soft blue glow illuminating his angered eyes.

It’s a rare sight, his anger. I keep soaking in his features. He’s twenty-one now. He looks older, but more so from stress.

I pre-ordered the Hamilton soundtrack on vinyl for his birthday, August 21st. He’s been obsessed with the musical, and the soundtrack is releasing soon, so he was happy and surprised I remembered.

But I wish I could’ve done more. Hamilton just moved from Off-Broadway to Broadway this month, and he would’ve loved to go.

It’s not even the price that stops me. We don’t have time. I mean, we celebrated his birthday in Verona, the club. Not the city. And even then, Luka and I had to leave early.

Geoffrey had the costume department make miniscule changes on our “nightmare” outfits. He scheduled us for fittings on that particular day, at night.

Luka shakes his head. “We’ll get Perrot to change this.”

“Perrot hasn’t fought Geoffrey on anything. Even Nikolai called him spineless.” I can’t be surprised anymore that this is happening. I can’t even be mad. I feel like I’m reserving all my energy for an apocalyptic scenario where Geoffrey attacks Luka.

Luka looks away, thinking.

“You know what’s weird? Months ago,” I whisper, “machetes seemed like the most dangerous, worst thing that could happen.” I shrug. “Now they don’t seem that bad.”

Luka gapes at me. No one ever asks if I’m being serious because they always know I am. “Come on, Bay.”

“What?” I frown.

“They’re bad.”

“They’re dulled, and I can put rubber on the edges while I practice.”

His nose flares. “What happens when you drop the machete on your head and the blade hits your skull? You’ll need twenty stitches, and you may form a stutter.”

So that happened to one of my instructors when I was eleven. I shouldn’t have told him that story. “Will you still love me if I form a stutter?”

“Bay,” he forces.

“You better,” I say. I already know he would.

Luka hugs me again, and he presses a long, warm kiss to the top of my head. As though healing a wound that hasn’t arisen yet.





FALL





Act Forty-Eight

Baylee Wright




A moan tickles my throat, my lips parted in an O-shape, and I accidentally thwack the handle of the shower for something to hold onto. Hot water cuts off, steam vanishing from the glass inside Luka’s bathroom.

My mind is on an earth-shattering ascent while my bare body is in Luka’s possession, my right leg hoisted over his shoulder. He kneels on the tiles, his fingers pressing in the soft flesh of my thigh.