Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(20)

I wish I knew AE’s reason for putting Luka in Infini, but I haven’t figured it out yet.

And I really need to stop thinking about him.

I already feel myself whirling backwards in mindset. In thought. I need to just move forward with my life. I can’t be yanked back to the past and to my choice. Because it hurts.

It hurts to touch, to think about—to relive. I don’t go there.

It’s pain that I’m not revisiting today. I try to cement this fact.

I scan my surroundings, and for whatever reason, my gaze plasters on a guy for two or three minutes. I’ve never seen him before, but plenty of the artists here are not only new to Infini but to Vegas. So it’s not that he’s new that entraps me.

Maybe it’s because he’s way past six-feet tall, a characteristic that really only fits Nikolai and Dimitri Kotova. I scrutinize him more. Broad-shouldered, dark brown hair cut short, gray eyes that sparkle, and a sculpted face—he’s a Kotova.

He has to be.

Then his eyes lock onto mine.

Usually I’m so invisible that no one ever catches me staring. His lip tics upward, and he pushes away from the wall.

He’s approaching me. It’s most likely that he’s a distant, distant cousin of Luka’s, someone he’s never met or even spoken to before.

I’m buzzed, I think as my fingers tingle against my second empty glass.

And the guy is at my table in a flash. Towering up above. He’s white, dressed in a snug-fitting black shirt and black jeans.

“Can I get you another?” He nods to my drink.

I pause to consider his offer.

Where guys are concerned, I’ve made a pack with myself to try and not close off to any possibilities. I wouldn’t actually pursue a Kotova romantically, but I don’t want to make an excuse just to avoid chatting at a bar.

It’s not like I’m not terrified or that everything works out in my favor. It doesn’t, but I can’t stop trying to open myself up just because I’m scared.

Take the risk.

I will.

If anything, it’s what Luka and I were always good at. Until the very end, at least. When the risk was too great to take.

“Sure,” I tell him. “Whiskey.”

“Whiskey,” he repeats with a smile. “I’ll be right back.”





Act Six

Baylee Wright



Sitting on the stool opposite me, he slides over my whiskey. “Been in Vegas long?” he asks, his lilt clearly American. I’m not really surprised. Even though the Kotovas speak Russian fluently, the ones in his generation only have American accents.

I cup the new whiskey glass. “About three years. I’m a born and bred New Yorker.”

He smiles into his swig of bottled beer, a dark IPA. “I can’t remember much about New York. I was only three or four the last time I was there.”

“It’s incredible.” My face is hot from the whiskey, and my buzzed-self (slowly creeping past buzzed), emphasizes more words than I normally would. “I first lived in Brooklyn. Then once my mom was hired for Aerial Ethereal’s Seraphine, we moved to Manhattan.” I’m already over-sharing, I think, but I continue on. “I started juggling at six, trained by an artist from Seraphine. And later on, when Infini was being developed in New York, they hired me. My first time working in the circus—and it was magical. Once Infini moved to Vegas, I moved with it.”

I become way too passionate about ordinary things most days, and it only intensifies when I drink. If I somehow switch to baseball, I’m going to send this guy fleeing.

In the next breath, I start talking about my mom being Jamaican-American, and I mention that she’s black and my dad is white—and I use present tense for everything. I catch myself talking about them like they’re still here, and that’s when I shut up.

His gray eyes only on me, he seems partially interested and partially curious.

I decide to ask a question since I just spilled my guts. “Your specialty?”

“High-risk acrobatics,” he says. “Aerialist. The normal.”

The normal. For Kotovas, those are the staples. My discipline is more unusual.

“So what’s the best part of New York?” he asks.

There’s so much. I list out the street food, the nightlife, and then of course, I mention baseball. I go off about the New York Mets. So animated that I lean forward, elbows on the table.

“Mets fans have such love for baseball. It’s like sitting in an audience that is completely and utterly devoted to this thing…this thing that gives people sheer happiness.” I stare up at the ceiling for the precise words to what I feel. “Being in the stands at a Mets game is the closest thing to watching Infini live.”

Luka once said that we’ll never experience the magic of our own act from an audience’s perspective. If we sat in the auditorium seats, we’d critique every little movement and cringe at what could’ve been better.

When I finish, he laughs. I can’t tell if it’s more mocking than amused. But I’m leaning towards mocking.

My passion ekes out of my face like an arrow pierced a floating balloon. “You think it’s funny?” I say flatly and edge back from him.

“I’ve never heard anyone compare the arts to baseball. It’s not my opinion.” He swigs his beer, and his eyes drift down my body in a once-over.