Amour Amour (20 page)

“I’ll share with Thora.” Katya nudges my hip with her foot and throws me a packet.

Luka leans his shoulders against the blue Celeste poster, scrutinizing me more closely, like a cop would a suspect. I guess it’s only fair. I’m stepping into his world without his permission.

“Are you going to rat me out?” He glares. And a Kotova glare is harsher than most, I’ve found.

“For Skittles?” I say like it’s a silly notion. Though it’s more than that—he’s gauging how loyal I am to Nikolai. And maybe reading into that too, for a relationship status. Or maybe I’m going crazy, assuming things that shouldn’t be assumed. Like Nikolai does. Okay, I may need to reevaluate my thought process soon.

“Yeah,” he says tensely, “for Skittles.” It’s like Skittles has become a code word. I’d be funnier if he wasn’t so serious right now.

“I won’t rat you out for Skittles,” I assure him.

After a long cagey moment, he finally nods, accepting my answer. Then the door cracks open again, this time Timo slides in, strands of brown hair touching his eyelashes. “Anyone have a hundred I can borrow?”

I frown and accidentally blurt out, “A hundred bucks?”

His lips rise, stuffing his hands into his leather jacket. “If I could gamble with a hundred hugs, you know I would, Thora James.” Yeah—I imagine John not liking that turn of events very much.

Luka stays quiet, but Katya reaches for her silver-studded clutch on the nearby dresser.

“Or a fifty.” Timo checks the Marilyn Monroe desk clock, antsy.

“You should really save up for Saint Petersburg,” Katya tells him, unzipping her wallet.

“I’ve already been to Saint Petersburg.”

“As a baby. It doesn’t count.” Katya leisurely inspects each credit card slot, avoiding the cash one. I think she’s purposefully prolonging this conversation, to have extra company, even for a moment’s time. “Nikolai let Luka visit when he was eighteen, and he said in two years, he’d let me go with you—”

“I’m not going to Russia,” he cuts her off. “I like it here, Kat. We
all
like it here. Right, Thora?”

I raise my hands, pleading the fifth. “I just got here.” I uneasily stand from Katya’s bed, afraid to be caught within the crossfire of a sibling fight. Since Tanner is so much younger than me, my relationship with my little brother is distanced at best. Sure, I love him, but we never hung out as friends. I’ve never been a part of close, in-your-face annoyances that brothers and sisters stir up.

I’m wading in new territory. Which has been my Vegas experience since day one. At least it’s not that unexpected anymore, some positives there.

Without peeking into the cash slot, Katya slowly zips her wallet and even buttons the flap, as though sealing Timo’s fate. “I have no money.”

This isn’t going to end well.

Timo’s face falls. “Come on,
please
. Don’t do this.”

She sticks her earbuds in, ignoring him.

“
Katya
,” he pleads. “You don’t want to go to Saint Petersburg. What’s there?”

Her cheeks flush red, able to hear him. “Family.”

Timo shakes his head wildly, his earring swaying. “Your family is here. Have you even talked to Luka about his trip?”

Luka shifts his weight apprehensively. “Stop, Timo.”

But Katya takes the bait, pulling out her earbuds. Her orb-like eyes tentatively flicker to me, for reassurance, I think. As though I can tell her the right path. I can’t. That’s for her to decide. I’m honestly just a bystander, a voyeur in the Kotova backstage experience. This time, I think I did purchase a ticket to it.

“What happened?” Katya asks her older brother.

“Nothing,” Luka says. “Nothing happened.”

Timo points at Luka, about to share details that aren’t his. My interest has peaked. Curiosity—it’s a naughty, wicked thing.

“You said you felt lost. Don’t lie,” Timo retorts.

Luka removes his baseball cap, combing his fingers through his short hair. “Look,” he says to both his siblings. Then he struggles for the next words.

Like Katya, he turns to me for that same support. I almost wonder if Nikolai fills this role in their lives. I just nod to him in encouragement, internally saying
you can do this,
whatever this is. 

His chest inflates, his shoulders rising. “…I thought I’d feel…home when I got there, but I didn’t. A lot was foreign to me.
I
felt foreign. Growing up here with part of the culture is different. We’re different, and we don’t fit in there…Kat.”

Tears well in her eyes, and her chin trembles. “But we don’t fit in here.”

Timo chimes in, “Yeah we do. Maybe what you’re feeling is
internal
, so don’t take it out on us.” He’s still trying to get her cash.

Katya flips him off.

I smile.

Timo groans. “Come on, Kat—” She dives underneath her comforter, physically icing him out. He sighs in frustration and turns to Luka.

“No.”

Timo focuses on me and presses his palms together, in prayer formation. “Please, please, Thora James. I’ll even take a twenty and pay you back fifty after I win big. You know I can.”

When I sat with him at John’s table, he won forty extra dollars, but he only left because he had to go prep for Amour. I tell him the truth, “I don’t carry cash on me.”

The door whips open for the third time, and I realize that the television is shut off, no interfering noise below. Everyone must’ve left. Nikolai stands strict in the door frame, and Timo and Luka go suspiciously quiet.

We can all hear Katya crying softly beneath her purple comforter.

“What’d you do?” He looks between both his brothers.

Timo rolls his eyes, but I see the remorse flood his features, his bright gray irises beginning to cloud. “I told her that I’m not going to Saint Petersburg.”

Nikolai glowers like
why would you ever fucking tell her that?
He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Everyone knew I was never going to go,” Timo refutes.

Luka whispers back, “You could’ve let her believe what she wanted, at least for two more years.”

Timo touches his chest. “I’m being criticized for telling the truth. Does anyone see how wrong this is?” He looks to me. “Thora?”

“Don’t bring her into your shit,” Nikolai cuts in. He gestures to me with two fingers, and when I approach him, he slips his hand in mine. I relax almost instantly, muscles loosening that I didn’t even realize were strained.

“She was my friend first,” Timo snaps. “Just think about that when you’re fu—”

Nikolai interjects with a bunch of Russian words. My eyes nearly pop out.
He was going to say when you’re fucking.
We’re not doing that. No. My neck heats.

No.

Timo huffs, more angrily, and then waves Nikolai off. If we’re being technical, I met Nikolai before any of them. I can’t say we were ever friends though.

Maybe a minute later, Nikolai disengages from his siblings, and I descend the staircase with him while they remain upstairs for a moment or two longer.

I can see the apologies in his eyes before he speaks. “I like your sister,” I tell him first. “She’s sweet.”

He’s taken aback, like no one has ever called Katya sweet before. “She’s still figuring things out,” he says.

“I get it,” I breathe. She’s trying to find herself. Some days I still wonder if I’ve found me. Maybe we never stop searching. Maybe we evolve the way seasons change, seamlessly without really knowing, not until all the leaves have fallen.

This is who I am today.

Tomorrow I may be the same.

But in years, I’ll be someone else. Someone I may like more. Someone I may like less. And that’s okay. Because I’m still living.

“What are you thinking?” Nikolai asks, lifting my chin as he stares down.

I just give him a weak smile. “What time should I wake up for training?”

“Early,” he says, dropping his hand. “I have a show at two tomorrow.”

I nod, knowing his schedule well enough. I’m about to go to the couch and plop down for the night when he catches my arm.

“About Dimitri.” He pauses. “I’ve known him since I was a little kid, and he’s always been this way. I just take him for what he is. I promise he won’t affect your training.”

I feel like we’re skirting around something deeper. It can’t be all about training. So I throw it out there, “No boyfriends, right?”

His features harden. “Don’t sleep with him.”

My eyes widen. “I wouldn’t…date your cousin.”

“I didn’t say date.”

“Nikolai—”

He turns his head from me, his jaw muscles contracting. “Never mind. I shouldn’t…I have no say in who you have sex with. You can do what you—”

“I’m
not
going to sleep with him,” I say assuredly. “Even if he wasn’t your cousin, I’m not remotely attracted to Dimitri.” I’m just saying whatever feels right, and surprisingly going with the moment helps.

Nikolai’s tense shoulders lower some, and he faces me. Saying nothing else. He seems conflicted, confused, knee-deep in a gray area that I’ve grown accustomed to.

I clear my throat to break the silence. “Yeah…so there’s that.”

“You have better judgment than most then.” He searches my eyes for clarity. I have no more answers than him. When he realizes this, he adds, “I’ll see you in the morning, Thora.”

Then he hesitates for a moment, and I wonder if he’s going to kiss me. Even my cheek or forehead. Something. He leans closer like he may.

At last second, he simply releases my arm, and he leaves my side. My life has never felt more complicated, but this is a complication that I’d rather exist than not have at all.

Act Nineteen

I am sweating.

Not the sexy sweat that glistens with a thin beautiful sheen—if that’s even real. I’m starting to question television and movies and humanity. My red Ohio State shirt is
soaked.

In two hours—I’ve done pull-ups, sprints, kettle balls, curls, a plethora of weight lifts, dead lunges, jump rope, and now I’m staring at a vertical beam that resembles a stripper pole, but it’s ten times higher and covered in rubber. I already know I’m going to have to
climb
the pole, my muscles shrieking at me to stop now.

Nikolai breathes heavily like me, hands on his sides, his bare chest
glistening
with sweat. He joined me on the torture-filled workout. It’s a hellish version of what I would’ve done this summer for gymnastics conditioning.

He really is the devil.

But he claims this is his normal routine, only modified for my height and size and discipline.

“When do…we practice…” I pant and gesture to the aerial silk light-years away from me. “…on that?”

His rolled red bandana collects his sweat, damp strands of hair hanging over it. “When you’re strong enough.”

I’ll be soaring forty-feet in the air without a harness, so I understand his concern. But… “You forget that I do an aerial hoop act every night, and I’m strong enough for that.”

He takes two lengthy strides near me and seizes my bicep. He lifts up my arm and points at the reddish burns that mar my skin, from armpit to elbow. “If you were strong enough, you’d be able to support your entire body weight to avoid this.”

“Hoop burns are normal.”
I think.
The friction of the metal and my skin is like a version of a rope burn—not the most pleasant sensation. “The other girls at Phantom have them.”

“The other girls at Phantom aren’t trying to join Aerial Ethereal.”

He makes a lot of sense.

“No complaining,” he adds, dropping my bicep. “Rule number one.”

“I was just kindly
mentioning
…something.” My mind travels away from me, especially as he rests a firm hand on my shoulder. My chest falls more deeply than before—and he seems to notice, eyeing my ribcage. Yet, he keeps that hand in place.

“Use your core.” He rests his other palm on my abdomen. “And climb halfway up. If you can support your entire body weight with just your hand, extending your body away from the pole, we’ll move onto aerial silk.”

I blow out a breath.
I can do it.
Even though I’ve never done that before—
I can still do it.
My cheerleader sounds less assured than usual.

When his hands fall, I near the pole, clasping it firmly. One more breath and I make the ascent, using the tips of my toes but mostly my arms, my muscles pulling tight.

Up.

And up.

You can do this, Thora.
It’s the lamest mantra in the history of mantras. I know this. But it’s the best one I have. It’s the one I always use, clearly. And still, the overuse doesn’t diminish its effect.

I keep my swift pace, the ceiling closer.

And closer.

Then halfway up, my quads spasm.

No.
I try to block it out.

Don’t think about it.

I climb a bit higher, and the spasm clenches my entire muscle, spindling towards my ankles.

A cramp.

Two
cramps. They’re not the little ones that I can shake off. It’s the crippling kind—from too much strain and maybe not enough hydration.

“Thora!” Nikolai calls.

I’m hugging onto the pole, my legs wrapped around it. “Just give…me a second!” I shout back, a wince contorting my face.
You can do this, Thora James. Climb this fucking pole.

I use my hands to pull my body higher, my legs worthless beneath me. One handhold extra and I stop. There’s no way I can support my weight with one hand. My body is out of commission. At least until the cramping ends.

“Climb down!” Nikolai shouts, his voice pitching in worry, but the severity—the strictness, chills my bones.

I inhale. “One more—”

“
Now
,” he forces. “I’m not playing the fuck around, Thora.”

 When I glance at him below, he braces a hand to the pole, standing right underneath it like he’s prepared to catch me if I let go and accidentally drop. His whole no-nonsense demeanor sways me. And I slide down the pole like a fireman or little kid in an indoor playground.