Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(74)

Guilt knots my stomach. “I’m twenty,” I say easily. “Please, back off.”

No one says a thing, and the tension only strengthens. Everyone is looking at me.

“I’m fine,” I tell them. “I have everything under control.” I flip my cellphone in my hand and comb a hand through my hair.

Nikolai veers onto Katya. “How’s your new porter?” (He means the dude that replaced me in the Russian bar act for Viva.) Katya sips her pint of root beer.

Nik stares darkly and disapprovingly. “We talked about this, Katya. You said you’d make an effort.”

“I said that I’d be nice. I’m nice.”

He snaps in Russian, “You’re being rude.”

Katya sighs, and her eyes soften on Sergei but she speaks to the whole table. “My new porter is infatuated with Rachel Bevens, the Olympic-gymnast-turned-trapeze-artist—you know her?”

We all nod.

She twirls her straw. “He ogled her from halfway across the gym, and then they started talking, which was more like shouting, about butt glue of all things.”

Nik’s features darken. “What is this about?”

Timo smiles. “Katya has a crush on her porter.”

“No,” Katya says adamantly to Timo. “I would’ve said something. I told you when I had a crush on Teddy—”

“Teddy?” Nik asks.

“A waiter at Imperial,” Timo says, naming an expensive restaurant on the rooftop of the Masquerade.

I frown. “Wait, was this recent?” She never told me.

“A week ago,” she says and shrugs like, we haven’t seen each other much.

I hate that.

Sergei clutches his water. “I still don’t understand the significance of Rachel and your porter.” He returns to the main subject.

I’m just as lost—and worried because she’s hiding something. Her eyes dart around the diner before landing on Nik.

“I was doing a full-in full-out,” she says slowly, “and he was so caught up in butt glue and Rachel that he shifted…well, he moved the beam too far to the left.”

“What?!” we all yell, causing half the diner to flinch and glance at us.

“I recovered!” She raises her hands. “Calm down. One foot reached the bar and slowed my momentum. Then I kind of…”

“You kind of what?” Nik snaps, his anger directed at the porter. Not her.

Katya makes a motion with her hand that looks a lot like a body-flop.

My eyes widen. “Onto the bar?”

“Yeah.”

I sway back, pummeled. I can’t look at her—or anyone. I stare haunted at the table, and Nik starts asking about her ribs. Sergei mentions the hospital for X-rays; AE will pay for it.

“Luk,” she whispers, ignoring Nik and Sergei. “It’s not your fault.”

If I stayed as her porter in Viva, this wouldn’t have happened. I have distractions more weighted than flirting about butt glue, but my personal life has never compromised my work. I’ve been drilled since birth about safety inside the gym and on stage.

It is my fault.

She’s lucky she can even walk—in fact, Nik asks her if she can.

“You saw me walking here,” she says with a tone like you’re being dramatic.

“Do you have a bruise?” I ask my little sister.

“No.”

She’s lying. I can just tell. I’ve known her for too long. Spent too many hours around her at work, at home. “Can you show me?” I ask nicely enough that she lifts up the corner of her purple sweater, knowing Sergei and Nikolai can’t see from behind the table.

I expel a pained breath. Dark yellow and purplish blemishes surround her ribs like marker bleeding into a paper towel. Only it’s her skin. It looks excruciating. She should’ve immediately contacted Corporate, but Nik will be the one to say so.

My eyes lift to hers.

Katya raises her chin like she’s tough, and I remember her saying, I’m a woman. Getting older shouldn’t be about ignoring pain and emotion—but who am I to talk. I’ve shoved mine in drawers.

Nik never cries.

Sergei bottles his feelings.

And Timo will explode all at once.

Performing on stage is the one cathartic release we all share, and maybe it’s too late for some of us to let go off stage, but Kat is still finding herself.

I hug my sister, careful of her ribs, and I whisper in her ear, “I love you, Kat. Tell me next time?”

She sniffs and nods, and I lean back as she rubs her watery eyes.

A half-wall separates us from the casino floor, and Timo must notice someone familiar by the slots because he stands up slightly on the seats. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he starts shouting, “Looking good, Thora James…” His voice teeters off, his face falling.

Something’s wrong with Thora.

Katya and I slide up against the half-wall. Peering over, I spot the short blonde by a slot machine about twenty feet away. Face splotched—crying.

She’s crying hard.

Nikolai sees and his demeanor changes to fierce urgency. Not even waiting for Sergei to let him out of the booth, my brother hurdles the wall and rushes to his girlfriend’s side.

“Do you know what’s wrong?” Sergei asks us, and we all shake our heads and watch.