Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(75)

Because of their noticeable height difference (six-five to five-two), he has to squat down to be eye-level.

From two booths over, I hear a person whisper, “Look, look. See how short she is compared to him?”

“Oh my God—and he’s really built.”

“Imagine them in bed.”

“Ouch. I would not want that inside of me if I were her size.”

I’m irritated, but Nik would kill me if I confronted hotel guests. Nik and Thora deal with worse when we go out. A drunk guy tried to fight Nik by insulting Thora, saying how “stretched out” she must be.

(People are fucking ridiculous.) “I can’t hear Thora,” Katya says. “Can you hear anything?” She looks back at me.

“No.” I see Thora’s lips moving, but her voice is drowned by pinging of slot machines and waitresses yelling food orders to cooks.

Thora sees us and tries to rub her bloodshot eyes—Nik looks back, and then he turns his body to block our view of his girlfriend.

“You think he’ll tell us what’s wrong?” Timo asks.

“No,” I say, knowing Nik likes to keep his personal life private. But it doesn’t always mean it stays that way.

My phone buzzes on the table. Sitting back, I grab my cell before anyone can read the screen.

Out to dinner with my brother, so not tonight. But yeah, let’s meet in the hotel sometime :) – Baylee My lips rise and I type back: I like your smile.

Her next text is quick.

Where’s yours? – Baylee I reply back with five emojis.

They’re all hearts.

A second passes before my phone buzzes again, but when it does, my smile expands.

I love you too. – Baylee “Who’s the girl?” Sergei asks—at first I think he’s talking to Timo or Katya but they’re still watching Nik and Thora.

And his gray eyes are on me.

“What are you talking about?” I pocket my phone.

“The look on your face while you were texting,” he clarifies.

I shrug. “She’s just a girl.” It underscores every ounce of what she means to me, and I feel like I’m betraying her by calling her that—I don’t even know what just a girl is.

Maybe he’s recalling how I stepped forward on stage and held plank beside Baylee first. We all lasted the three hours, thank God. Maybe he’s thinking of how I defended her. How we “did cocaine” in the past.

Maybe he’s about to chew me out.

He wouldn’t be the first or the second or the motherfucking third.

I wait.

I wait for it. (Come on, Sergei. Chastise me, too.) “I’m starting to think,” he says lowly so only I can hear, “that I don’t really understand you.”

I nod slowly.

Too stunned to do anything else.

Sergei looks at Timo and Kat. At Nik and Thora. And I think he’s realizing, for the first time, just how much he truly missed.





Act Twenty-Six Luka Kotova

29 Days to Infini’s Premiere

“Stop! Stop!” our choreographer yells.

Inside the performance gym, I deaden my momentum on the trampoline, Bay on my shoulders. I clutch her legs, and she catches her last ball on its descent.

She can now successfully perform an eight-ball, seven-up pirouette while sitting on my shoulders, so I have no clue why he shut off the music at this spot.

My brother and six cousins come to a full stop on the net, just as perplexed.

Baylee leans her head down to me, and I look up. “Did I screw up?” she asks, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, four balls gripped methodically in her palm. “I didn’t, right?”

“No,” I assure her. “It felt good.”

She nods but starts smiling as my own lips rise. I’d kiss her if I could, and I really don’t want to set her down yet. I run my hands discreetly up her legs, and she unconsciously tightens her thighs around my neck.

I shut my eyes in a tight blink, just for a split-second. My muscles flex, cock aching to harden.

The past two days we’ve been meeting in the Masquerade’s twelfth floor maid’s closet. (I stole the keys.) We make out but we also talk a lot. I caught her up on my family issues, and she caught me up on her brother. Who’s stressed about his own act.

Geoffrey just trashed the new aerial straps choreography that Zhen and Brenden learned. Baylee said that Geoffrey called it “lackluster” and now they have to start from scratch again. With less than thirty days until the premiere.

There is a chance that aerial straps could be pulled off the program completely.

Baylee’s lips lower, and I see that she’s worried our act will have a similar fate as her brother’s.

“All nine of you,” Geoffrey calls, “come down here.”

Gently, I hoist Baylee off my shoulders, setting her feet on the net, and I hold her hips while we wait for my cousins to descend the poles to the ground. She almost leans back into my chest, but she catches herself and straightens up.

I stand beside Bay, waiting for a free pole. Our hands skim, pass each other by, brush again—and I don’t even realize I’m holding her hand until I feel her quickened pulse against mine.

We separate almost instantly. “Do you need help?” I ask as she clasps the pole.