Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(58)

Our noses brush as he dips his head lower. “Exactly.” We’re about to kiss again, but the cab’s headlights glare, and a beam of light sweeps our bodies.

He eases back, and I drop down off of him. I’m tense.

He’s tense.

I’m also more aroused than I’ve been in years. A sheen of sweat coats our skin, and the chilly night pricks my neck. Yet, I burn up from the moment.

I expect a wedge to drive us apart, but we’re clinging to one another as long as we can. In secret. I hug him around the waist, and he hooks his arm around my shoulders, bringing me even closer and kissing the top of my head.

He also used to do that all the time as we evaded AE employees. A warm side-hug and a head kiss. While we walked and talked. Everywhere we went.

And I miss falling asleep in his arms.

We have to go. But I never want this night to end. Once we reach the Vegas strip, reality looms, and in time, we’ll have to fully separate and act like nothing happened here.

I try to remember the good. I try to hang on.

I’ll see Luka again. Not just as co-workers, but as something more.





Act Twenty-One Luka Kotova

47 Days to Infini’s Premiere

February in Vegas on a Friday afternoon. It’s weirdly hot outside, and less strangely, overcrowded.

We’re given an hour lunch break from practice, and I push through the throngs of tourists taking selfies.

Of course they choose to congregate around the Masquerade’s street entrance. It’s known for its mammoth marble replica of a regal ball. People can walk through the legs of marble masked men and women.

I duck beneath a selfie stick and spot Bay by the curb. Staring at the vast row of food trucks. I begin to smile.

Food trucks only stop by the Masquerade on the last Friday of every month, and I haven’t been in the past. Always avoiding her. But I’m done with avoidance.

For once, I’m getting what I want.

After we kissed outside the diner, we agreed to keep it professional for a few days. Just to throw off any suspicion. We’re not actively trying to be caught, but that cautiousness lessens today. Earlier, I texted her about grabbing lunch.

It went something like this.

Me: Lunch?

Baylee: it’s food truck day. I can’t miss it.

Me: so then food trucks.

Baylee: it’s right outside the hotel. Unless you’re okay with that.

Me: I’m okay with that.

If someone sees us, we can blame “coincidence” and that we just happened to want the same food. We’re still co-workers.

This whole plan is going to work.

It has to work.

I approach Baylee, and she catches my gaze. Her lips partially upturn, sunlight glittering her brown eyes. Her sporty braids are a little bit frizzy (adorably so), both of us beat from six hours of morning practice. I notice an icepack melting in her hand.

I edge as close as I can, my fingers brushing hers. In deep Russian, I whisper, “Hello, beautiful,” and smile into my words.

Baylee tries to suppress her own grin, smoothing her lips together. Then she covers her mouth with her fingers. How she looks—giddy, overwhelmed—I feel it too. My body lightens like I’m floating. For fuck’s sake, it’s a better feeling than actually flying forty-feet in the air.

I don’t know how that’s possible.

Love is strange and weird and unpredictable—and that’s probably why I’m drawn to it.

To her.

Baylee drops her hand to gesture at me. “You have to pause this for at least one more minute.”

She means me flirting. “Why?”

“Because this is serious.” Baylee isn’t referring to us. “I have fifty choices”—she motions to the long line of food trucks—“and I only ever make this choice once a month. It’s not like New York where, bam, there’s street food. Turn left, oh, a food truck. Here, outside of the Masquerade, this is it.”

“The food truck apocalypse.”

“That’s dramatic,” she says seriously.

And then we both burst into laughter, knowing her passionate declarations are more theatrical than my words.

As our humor weakens, I ask, “Which food truck are you thinking?”

“I don’t know.” Baylee cranes her head—and winces, freezing in place.

I grimace and watch her place the icepack on her neck. (What happened?) “Most of the trucks are new,” she says, “but there are some old standbys that are good.”

“Let’s try something new.” I hone in on her neck, concerned. Practice for Infini has been hellish. (I’m not exaggerating.) My calves, knees, quads, triceps, and the rest of my muscles throb and burn. Purple bruises dot my legs and torso.

In a cast of 50 artists, we’ve already gone through three boxes of Kinesio tape. It helps lessen pain, inflammation, prevents further injury, and reduces lactic acid buildup. We’re all physically feeling the stress of Geoffrey’s impossible demands.

And I worry about Baylee.

When I’m on the Russian swing or Wheel of Death, she’s going over her solo juggling act. We’re not always together in the gym.

I barely saw her today, so I don’t know what caused the pain in her neck. If she got seriously hurt or what.

“This way,” Baylee says, leading us down the street. Shaded by the trucks’ overhangs, I spin my blue hat, wearing the rim backwards, and I chew a “stolen” toothpick (they were basically free).