Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(4)

Timo is also lost in a mound of shoeboxes and towering stacks of snow globes, and to be completely honest, a lot of shitty Vegas paraphernalia that has no place or name.

It’s junk.

I can admit that any day, any time.

Timo rifles through a shoebox, not noticing me, and after careful examination, he chucks the box into his trash bag.

“Timo,” I call out, loud enough that he spins around.

Items clatter beside his lean, athletic frame, but he manages to crawl out. Sweating, he shoves the longer strands of his dark, disheveled hair out of his charismatic face. He’s only a year and a half younger than me, but I’m an inch taller.

His gray eyes glimmer like a thousand-watt bulb, and he smiles an incredibly contagious smile. To the point where I almost forget that I’m supposed to be irritated.

Timo pops an earbud out, an upbeat song blaring through the tiny speaker. “Hey, Luk.” Then he unplugs the cord, music booming through his phone. Timo swings his head heavier to the rhythm and shifts his body with the harmony, goading me to join his dance.

My body craves soulful rhythms like an animal craves an endless field to sprint. To run.

For me, it’s unnatural not to dance. I don’t know how, and it takes effort to force my body still and not move to the beat.

Timo must see that something’s off with me, so he lowers the volume of his music. His black cross earring sways, and he pockets his phone in his cut-off shorts. Wearing a leather jacket, no shirt beneath—Timo is the kind of guy you wish you knew. Intriguing. Captivating.

I’m the shadow to his ceaseless light.

(Don’t pity me.) I’m grateful to be anything next to Timo. Even a shadow. That’s how much I love him.

I nod to the garbage. “Dude, what the hell is that?”

Timo eyes me weirdly. “Trash…?” His mouth falls. “Are you glaring at me?” He rocks backwards, surprised.

“You can’t just throw away my shit without asking.” My knuckles whiten as I grip the door frame harder.

Timo touches his chest. “I’m doing both of us a favor. Didn’t you read AE’s email—no, scratch that, you probably skimmed it. Which is why you’re not panicked.” He tosses the garbage bag past me. Glass clinks, the trash thudding by my bed.

“What do you mean?” I don’t scroll through my emails for proof. I trust Timo to tell me the news.

He raises his brows. “We have to move by five p.m. or else they’ll fine us a grand.”

“Fuck,” I groan.

“We’re way past fuck, brother. Aerial Ethereal isn’t playing games with this one.” He strolls past me and effortlessly hoists himself on my dresser.

I spin around, unable to detach from the closet door. On the floor, Katya refolds my clothes and places them more gently in the boxes.

Our salaries aren’t that great, but none of us perform for the money. We do it for the art and to be close to our family.

And because I literally don’t know how to do anything else. I was raised for this. Only this.

Timo catches my gaze. “You could give me a hundred bucks and I’ll turn it into a grand downstairs. Buy us extra time.”

“No,” I decline fast. He could easily spend all day at the casino tables and slots, and while he does win a lot, he loses too. I haven’t given him cash to gamble in about a year.

“Kat?” Timo asks, pouting his bottom lip.

“I can’t afford to share my money anymore,” she says, her words sounding rehearsed.

Timo and I exchange a confused look.

I prod first. “Why not?”

“I’m saving up.” She avoids our intrusive gazes by refolding my shirt. “It’s private, so don’t ask what for.”

“Ouch.” Timo wears mock hurt, but more than a fraction of that is actually real.

I thought we were closer than that, I want to say, but I’m harboring a secret bigger than either of them have ever imagined or considered.

It involves a girl.

I nearly shut my eyes and yell at myself, don’t think about her. Don’t fucking think about her.

So I stay quiet in terms of Katya’s declaration. She fills the tense silence. “I’m sixteen,” she tells us like we’ve forgotten. “I’m a woman.”

“No shit,” Timo says.

I’m not catching on either.

Katya sighs. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Okay,” I say, really baffled. In our profession and our family, the ratio of men to women is severely off balance. I’m not great at math, but it’s pretty much all male around here. Sometimes I really don’t understand my little sister’s female needs.

I unfasten myself from the closet and snatch my Knicks hat from a box, fitting it on backwards. My younger siblings watch me take a seat on my bare mattress.

“What’s left to pack?” I ask Timo.

“Your closet, mostly.” He holds my gaze, a thousand uncomfortable words passing silently between us. I hate each one because they’re all about the shit stuffed in my closet. “You know—”

“Don’t say it,” I cut him off.

He tilts his head. “I was just going to tell you that I rolled all of your Broadway posters into tubes.”

(So I love watching sports, preferably pro-basketball, and Broadway. If anyone wants to laugh or call me a pussy, the exit is stage left.) Timo adds, “I even took better care of them than my film posters.”