Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(50)

As his smile slowly fades, the weight of everything we lost compounds and stretches taut between us.

“You look older,” I say the obvious—but I’m not taking it back.

“So do you.” He skims me.

I skim him, the table separating us.

Both of us wondering what else is different. What stayed the same. My style hasn’t really altered. Outside of work, I wear a pair of spandex pants and a long-sleeved Nike top.

He’s similarly dressed down like he used to be: jeans and a plain navy tee.

Luka runs a hand through his tousled, dark brown hair. Troubled lines form across his forehead, and then he eyes my floral-printed journal that I set by the salt shaker.

He hasn’t asked what it is, and I haven’t surfaced the list yet.

Luka nods to me. “Maybe we should start at what you planned to say.”

“Back at the hotel?” I just remember being cut off mid-sentence.

“Yeah.” He leans back, but then leans forward. “Or, you know, we can talk about how you are.” The intensity in his gaze speaks that question: how are you doing, Bay?

“How I am,” I repeat, thinking for a hot moment. I watch his fingers pause on the sugar packets. “It really depends on what area. Like work?”

“I work with you.” Luka begins to smile again. “I know how you are at work.”

“Then personal, health, financial, romantic—”

“All of it,” he interjects and spreads his hands out. Sitting close, I wonder if he wishes the table disappeared.

I lean back—almost afraid of taking the risk. He’s always been the one to plunge first. I rest my arms loosely on my knee. All of it. “I want to know the same about you.”

“Trust me, my life has been boring.”

“You’re so far from boring, it’s ridiculous.” I smile off of his smile again. It seems so unbelievable how easily he can flood me with warmth, but reality claws behind us. Ready to tear us apart, and my smile lasts two-point-two seconds before deteriorating completely.

Luka checks his canvas wristwatch. “Practice is at five a.m.”

“And?” Is he…saying what I think he’s saying?

“And we have six hours until then.” Yep, he is. “Want to pull an all-nighter with me, krasavitsa?”

I try to stifle my reaction at krasavitsa. It means beautiful in Russian. “Stop,” I say into another smile.

“What should I stop, krasavitsa?” he teases. The old term of endearment seriously does a number on me.

I put my hand to my face to hide this uncontrollable giddiness—that I’ve only felt from him. “You’re terrible.”

He laughs into the most gorgeous smile. This is where he’d hug me.

Kiss me.

As our cold reality bites us, the lightheartedness drops very abruptly. We’re not those young kids anymore. Being careless and fun on our free days.

He’s not dribbling a basketball between my legs and taunting me to steal it. I’m not whacking my bat at machine-sputtering balls while he announces, “Bases are loaded. She’s 5-and-0. No one can strike out the indomitable, undefeatable Baylee Wright,” all behind the fence. He’s not hollering baseball chants like “pitcher’s gotta big butt”—and I’m not buckled over laughing with my face in my hands.

New York with Luka—it seems like ages ago. Like a different lifetime.

Our gazes search one another. For hope that I’m not sure exists.

I cut into the silence first. “Is it sad that six hours seems too short?”

“It feels like five minutes,” he agrees.

I pile a few sugar packets onto his, and I think aloud, “Marc always said that we were lucky. We got what no one else did.” A second chance. “We’re greedy, aren’t we?” Just being here, we’re taking advantage of the system when they ordered us not to.

Guilt wedges into me.

But not enough to leave this booth. Does that make me a terrible person?

The chiseled lines of his face overtake the angelic. “We’ve been selfless for five years, and Corporate is the one that put us in the same show together.”

“Corporate,” I repeat, the word carrying so much weight.

Luka Kotova is the only one that calls Aerial Ethereal by that generic name. It was always his way of bastardizing a company that set rules he said he could never tolerate.

The familiarity is like stepping into an ice bath. Waking me up to the past and present. Now it’s my turn to stare straight into him.

And I say, “That hasn’t changed.”

He tries to edge closer, but with the table—it’s impossible.

I notice the cigarette in his fingers. “You can light it. I’m not grossed out by smoking.”

Stiffly, he procures a tiny box of matches from his pocket. After lighting the cigarette and blowing smoke upwards, he says, “What’s with the journal?”

I straighten up. “It actually ties into one of the areas I mentioned before.”

He scans me, head-to-waist, like the answer is written on my body. “Which area?”

“Romantic…” I trail off as the waitress returns with our coffees. “Thank you,” I say and she asks if we’re ready to order.

Luka flips open his plastic menu and spontaneously chooses the first thing he sees. He used to do this all the time.