Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(55)

Our future, together, may be a dangerous mystery, but we can start somewhere.

I catch her gaze. “Let’s just try to work on your list,” I tell Bay, my old best friend, my ex-girlfriend—she meant the entire universe to me. She still does.

“Say we do this,” she says, “and we basically perform my list together. When does it end?”

If the point is to bring closure to each act, there’s only one answer to that. “When we finish all the numbers on your list.” Then it’s over.

I try to push this part, this fact, so far back in my head.

She’s thinking hard.

“Okay?” I ask, but right as I do, my phone vibrates on the table. Her cell buzzes in her wrist wallet.

We both tense.





Act Twenty

Baylee Wright




I check my phone and see a new group text. Involving me, Luka, and the sender.

Before I can even read the message, Luka’s phone goes haywire, buzzing and vibrating incessantly. He can’t click into the texts fast enough.

Luka curses in Russian and shoots up, dialing a number.

“What’s wrong? Is it Timo?” It’s what always happened in New York. He’d wander off wherever his heart took him, and the Kotovas would send out a mass S.O.S. to hunt for Timofei. On occasion, I’d join the search party.

“No, it’s Kat.” He puts his phone to his ear, hand on his head and he starts speaking hurried Russian.

Quickly, I stand and unzip my wallet, about to fish out some cash for the Moon Pie and coffee. Then I freeze at the sight of my cell screen. “Wait, Luka.”

I pick up my phone. The sender in the three-way group text—it’s Katya.

What should I do?!?!?!!! I heard Dimitri + Nik talking in the living room, and D was saying how he hasn’t seen Luk since that seminar thing. D asked about Baylee’s whereabouts. N said he didn’t know but he’d ask me. They seemed mad, and I don’t want to rat you out, Luk. So I hid in the closet, and now N thinks I’m missing.

WHAT DO I DO?!? – Katya “Bay,” Luka says, eyes pooled with concern. “What is it?”

“Katya sent us a group text.” I show him my phone since her text might be stacked beneath his cousins’ and brothers’ panicked messages.

Luka reads rapidly, and then he puts his phone back to his ear. I can’t understand all of the Russian, but as soon as he hangs up, he fills me in. “I told Erik I’d call her favorite restaurant, see if she’s there.”

A lie, obviously. “You realize that you’re simultaneously loyal and disloyal.”

“You realize my little sister has your new phone number when I don’t even have it.”

I shake my head. “Not the point.”

“It’s my point.” His smile fades quickly, the buzzing reigniting.

I cup my phone, about to text Katya back. “We can’t rope her into this.”

“She’s already in it.” Luka holds out his hand towards my phone like I’ll take care of it. “The three of us—me, Katya, Timo—we cover for each other all the time.”

I have plenty of these memories. When I was thirteen, we all snuck out for ice cream at 3 a.m. and ate freezer-burned popsicles from a 24-hour convenience store.

Three nights later, Timo went alone to that same convenience store. When his family tried to find him, Luka lied to Nik about Timo’s whereabouts, but Luka caught up to his little brother and joined him. So he’d be safe.

“But you all don’t lie for each other if it’s serious,” I say, also remembering that he’s ratted Timo out to Nikolai before. Concerned about Timo’s late-night club-hopping.

Likewise, I was around when Timofei told Nik that Luka stole from an Aerial Ethereal office. Just an ugly paperweight, but Luk was pushing it too far. I was as worried as his family, and he tried really hard to stop stealing after that.

He didn’t always succeed.

“Yeah,” Luka says as he texts his sister, “but Kat won’t see you and me as a bad thing.”

I nod, knowing that she wants us all to be friends again.

My phone buzzes.

Rose Calloway would know what to do – Katya I’ve seen Katya watch a few old reruns of Princesses of Philly, a cancelled reality show that starred the infamous Calloway sisters and their men. It aired when I was split apart from Luka.

“Rose Calloway is her favorite,” I realize, somewhat downtrodden. Because when we were younger, I would’ve pegged her as a Daisy Calloway fan. But Rose is basically the equivalent to Posh Spice. Always chic-looking, a fashion designer, ice-cold but tough-as-nails.

“Yeah, don’t get her started on PoPhilly,” Luka says. “She’ll literally discuss the ‘dichotomy’ of Connor Cobalt and Scott Van Wright for hours.”

I almost gag at that name Scott Van Wright. “Don’t say his last name.”

“Why not?” Luka looks up.

“I don’t want to hear you say my last name with Scott Van attached.” He’s disgusting and a villain masquerading as a romantic love interest for Rose when she clearly had feelings for Connor. “I’d rather the name be synonymous with Neal & Joyce Wright.”

His gaze softens and he nods, but he’s hung up on something because he keeps staring at me.