Infini (Aerial Ethereal #2)(77)

“I spoke figuratively.”

My younger cousins laugh.

I can’t help it—I smile.

Geoffrey steps forward, only a foot from my face. I remain calm and cup my hands in front of me again. He searches my eyes feverishly for truth, I’m guessing.

I am full of truths and heartache and pain.

Half belongs to people I care about. Me hurting for them. And the half that belongs to me, I’m not allowed to express.

If he’s aware of my past with Baylee, then he already knows this, but he still seems oblivious. Even if we caught him chatting with Vince one time.

“Are you ever angry?” he asks me.

“What?”

“Do you ever get angry?” he wonders. “I’ve seen these ones”—he gestures to my cousins—“argue and become frustrated, but you…you just let everything roll off your shoulders.”

Is he serious? “Can I ask why you’re saying this like it’s a character flaw?”

“I want feeling. What makes you tick?”

(Motherfucking Corporate.) I shrug. “I don’t know.” He’s literally staring me dead in the eyes like we’re in a Western and he’s about to draw a gun from his holster and shoot me.

“I’m glaring at you, and you’re relaxed.”

“You don’t scare me.”

“I don’t?”

“No,” I say just as casually. I seriously believe Geoffrey wants to provoke me into a fight right now.

Dimitri, Sergei, Matvei, and Erik—the oldest four—turn towards me in anticipation of something that I don’t even want to happen. I’m not even tensed up. If I touch our choreographer, I could be fired on spot.

I see Baylee out of the corner of my eye. She’s trying to angle her body to catch his attention and draw his interest off of me.

I angle my back to her. Hiding her from his sight.

Geoffrey follows my shift. Still right up in my face. (His goatee is ugly, in case you were wondering.) “When’s the last time you sobbed?” he asks.

“I don’t remember,” I say the truth.

“When’s the last time you jerked off?”

“You can’t ask him that,” Baylee says passionately, pretty much pissed off for me.

Geoffrey barely acknowledges her. “I just did. Does it make you upset?” he asks me.

“Yesterday,” I answer his previous question. “And no.”

“What were you thinking about?”

I almost laugh. It’s absurd how much I can’t actually say because of Corporate, which he works for. Irony. I think that term fits here. The answer, of course, is Baylee Wright. I imagined wrapping my arms around her waist and chest from behind. Then I bent her over a bed and pushed into her pussy.

She came instantly.

“Don’t laugh,” Geoffrey says. “Don’t smile. I want severity.”

Severity. “Fine,” I say, suppressing my humor. “But asking me what I jerk off to isn’t exactly serious.”

“You have a sister? Don’t you?” (Welcome to the worst segue in the history of segues.) I’m already feeling overprotective of Katya. I took her to the ER with Nik, and the doctor said if she came down any harder on the beam, she would’ve fractured three ribs. Luckily they were just severely bruised.

Geoffrey snaps, “It’s not a hard question. Do you have a sister?”

I immediately glance at Dimitri—who’s scrutinizing the choreographer with narrowed eyes.

“Don’t look at him. Look at me.”

I obey.

Geoffrey smiles. “There’s a glare.”

If he wants me to glower like I’m seconds from ripping out his large intestines, I can do that, easily. Anger just leads nowhere good. I’ve been the angst-ridden fifteen-year-old banging at Corporate’s brick walls until my fists bloodied. I don’t do that anymore.

“Tell an excruciating moment,” he says, “that involves your sister.”

“No,” I say like someone would say yes. No harshness.

“No?”

“No,” I say just as simply.

His nose is one centimeter from touching mine. (I’m not exaggerating.) “Then I’ll list out various scenarios involving your sister that will bring something out of you.”

I blink a few times, and he studies the way I literally process two aggressively painful situations. I lick my lips and breathe, “Stop.” It slipped.

“I didn’t catch that.”

My nose flares, and I blink rapidly before I rake my fingers through my hair. I’m in control. (Am I in control?) “Lay off of him,” Baylee interjects, trying to side-step around me, but I block her again. “Luka.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“He’s not?” Geoffrey tilts his head at me, almost challengingly.

“My sister is a minor,” I suddenly inform him.

Geoffrey actually flinches.

(Yeah, fuck off.)

I am compacting too much shit I’m not supposed to say and feel into drawers and (parentheticals) that my heart pounds at an abnormal speed.

“If you’re not willing to participate, then you’re officially out of this act,” he threatens.