35. Act Thirty-Five
ACT THIRTY-FIVE
“ I f you stay in Vegas, you have to support yourself,” my mother tells me over the phone. I lie on my stomach, still on Nikolai’s bed. Only six in the morning, still dark outside.
“I have been.” I block out Phantom firing me and the second decision I have to make in a short period of time. This has to be resolved first.
She inhales sharply, like she may start crying. I exhale deeply, trying to combat my own emotions. Round two.
Nikolai rubs my back, leaning against the headboard. Here for support. It’s a little easier.
My cellphone is cold to my ear.
“I thought your father and I taught you that college is more important than…” Her voice breaks. Than a boy. I hear the unsaid words.
“I’m staying because I have a better chance at landing a contract here, Mom. I can still train until January.”
She’s quiet for a moment, but a muffled voice leaks onto the line. It must be my dad. Then she asks, “Are you still going to work at that club?”
Had I not been fired, I would’ve said yes. I feel that answer in my bones. “I think so,” I say what my gut tells me. “I need the money.”
I imagine my father’s gutted expression, the disappointment, the rage, frustration. It seeps into me, but I don’t back down.
“Did this boy sway you?” my mom asks, her voice shaking with hurt. I already know she probably didn’t sleep last night.
But neither did I. My thoughts were set to a noisy radio channel that I couldn’t turn off.
Before I answer, my father’s anger is apparent from the background, “He’s not a boy, Dana. He’s a man .” As though Nikolai is old enough to take advantage of me, to brainwash me, to force me here.
Nikolai must’ve heard him through the speakers, even though it’s pressed to my ear. His hand stops its rhythmic motion, placed on my lower back. And he removes it altogether. I watch him stand up and disappear into the walk-in closet, simultaneously giving me space and getting dressed for the day.
I tell my mom, “He just reminded me why I’m here.” I don’t need them to express their doubts, in any part of my life, so I quickly speak again. “This is the hardest choice I’ve had to make. But I’m not going back on it.” I’ve gotten this far.
“We love you,” my mom cries. “Our door is always open for you. When you’re ready, you come home.”
My chest tightens. “Thanks, Mom. I love you both too.” After another reiteration of these sentiments—with no interjections of good luck or love you from my father—we hang up. And I stuff my face in the pillow, groaning. You’d think after that I’d feel weightless, a certain kind of relief.
But I’d prefer to sink into this bed and wallow for a good hour or two.
Nikolai emerges from the closet, already in workout shorts, shirtless: his abs chiseled, the V of his muscles prominent by his waistband. He ties a rolled red bandana behind his head, strands of his hair already hanging over the fabric. “You okay?” he asks me, concern in his voice.
“I’ve been better,” I whisper. I’ve never cried for that long or been that emotional in my entire twenty-one years of living. My eyes and throat feel like sandpaper. “Are we training?”
He nods after he finishes tying the bandana. “Right now.”
Right now?
I glance at the bedside digital clock. It’s only six-thirty in the morning. My body is too heavy to move. I collapse back onto the pillow with another muffled groan, working my way up to rolling over. Roll over. You can do this.
My muscles don’t budge.
“Get dressed,” he orders, his tone already all business.
I’ve left some clothes here, in case he calls an impromptu training session like this one. It happens often, but rarely this early.
I mumble something that sounds like: in a minute. But with the pillow in my face, I doubt he hears me. The bed suddenly rocks, Nikolai kneeling on either side of my body.
Lips to my ear, he whispers, “I’m giving you ten seconds.”
That’s not long enough for my rusted joints to cooperate. Or maybe it’s all in my mind. That’s a definite possibility. “Thirty,” I mumble.
“This isn’t a negotiation. My rules.”
Okay. Okay—I’ll get up. I try propping my elbows, but I honestly end up hugging the pillow above my head. Mind and body, at war once again.
“Five seconds left,” he warns me. Still on my stomach, I try to crane my neck over my shoulder.
He’s practically straddling me. His pelvis in line with my ass. It’s a position I’ve never been in with another guy—especially not one who stares at me with harsh, tireless gray eyes. He gives me an expression like you’re here to train, myshka, not collapse in self-pity. Or have sex with him.
And he’s right, of course.
Get up, Thora. I prop my elbows on the mattress this time, but I hesitate, a mental, emotional, physical block. I think my pity party needs one more hour.
Nikolai isn’t having it. “Time’s up.” He pulls my baggy tee off, leaving me in my lacy red bra, part of my Phantom costume. He won’t let me slack off, not for my emotions, not for him. Not for anything.
I think I love him more for it.
Love.
It’s a strong word, but I’m not sure what else to call this. It’s greater than just like. It’s more powerful than friendship. If I’m not falling in love with him, then I’m missing the definition of the level right below it. Sort-of-love. Almost-love.
Maybe-one-day-love.
“You’re a slug,” he says, unclipping my bra. “A melancholic, defeated slug.”
He’s trying to put a fire under my ass by insulting me, since I’m rarely sluggish or defeated. My lips rise in the pillow. I definitely love him.
And then he yanks down my pants and lacy underwear, exposing my bare bottom. I feel him tense, and I look over my shoulder again. His severely stern gaze is locked on a new reddish bruise along my ass, which has begun to purple.
From when the drunken guy slapped and grabbed me at Phantom last night.
Out of instinct, I try to roll onto my back, to hide the shape of the mark, but his firm hand bears on my shoulders, keeping me in place.
His chest rises and falls in a heavier rhythm. “Someone slapped you,” he deduces, his voice hollow, like the depths of a cave. My stomach overturns. I can’t see as well as him, but there must be five dots like fingerprints.
“Hazards of the job,” I say under my breath.
His unflinching, hot eyes burn holes right into me. And then he climbs off the bed, his muscles more flexed. I uneasily lift my pants back to my waist and clip my bra. “Nikolai…?”
He stops short by the bathroom door, his back facing me. “Just…give me a second.” He’s collecting his anger, his volatile emotions that burst and harden his broad shoulders. Since Coco Roma, the costume shopping, we rarely talk about Phantom, almost not at all.
I slide to the edge of the bed, waiting for him to turn around. “It rarely happens.”
“Rarely?” He finally faces me, so much anguish contorting his features. “You think that’ll make me feel better?” His cold voice stings more. “I don’t want it to happen at all , Thora.”
“I get bruises from training,” I defend. “Can you pretend that I just fell?”
He looks at me like I stuck my fist in his chest. “No. I can’t pretend, because you didn’t just fall. A man assaulted you. I’m never going to be okay with that.”
The weight of Roger’s proposition still hangs over my head. I need this job, and it’s become a whole hell of a lot risker than what it was. “I know you’re angry at me, but—”
“I’m not angry at you. I’m furious at every piece of shit that walks into Phantom and believes they have the right to touch you.”
I hang my head, the guilt pummeling me down. This probably wasn’t the reaction he hoped for.
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asks lowly, reading me too well.
I twist my small simple pinky ring, avoiding his gaze. “They cancelled my act last night, at Phantom.” I swallow hard. “It was right before my parents showed up.”
“And?” His voice sounds tight, knowing this doesn’t end on a happy note. I wouldn’t be this sullen if it did.
“They said the only way that I can still work there is if I perform my act in private shows.” I pause, but he stays quiet. So I continue on, “I don’t have many details to go on, but they said that I’d make a lot of money. And that I have to give them a decision today.”
He rubs his face with his hands, as though he’s trying to wake up. Then he meets my eyes. “You already said yes.” It’s not a question. And the pain in his voice hurts me more.
“I was going to…”
He shakes his head repeatedly. “Thora, you have no idea what you’re getting into.”
“It’s probably not as bad as you think.”
He stares at me like I’m out of my mind. “You’re completely na?ve if you believe there won’t be a sexual favor involved. They’ll make you strip, suck him off, give him—”
“Stop,” I cringe.
“No, you have to hear this.” He steps nearer, until he towers above me. “I won’t let you take a job that you believe is something it’s not.”
I’m conflicted, all over again. But I remember my plan. “I’m going to try to find another job today. I’ll call John. He got me the one at Phantom. And I’ll ask around and look online, but if I can’t find anything…” Tears well at the devastation in his eyes. “I need this job, Nik.”
“Live with me,” he says.
For so many reasons, this isn’t possible. “You know I can’t.” The words hurt as much to hear as they are to say. And as horrible as it seems, I think it’d be different if he was just a friend. If I was crashing at his place for a couple nights like at the beginning. But to rely on him this way now—it feels like defeat, like I failed at my purpose for being here.
He kneels. At my feet. I don’t have to strain my neck anymore. And he places his hands on my thighs. “I know you want to be independent, but it shouldn’t cost what you say you’re willing to pay.”
“I wouldn’t…” My voice cracks and I shake my head. “I wouldn’t blow another guy. I wouldn’t do anything like that, Nik.”
“And what if they put you in that position?”
“I’ll leave,” I say, adamant about this.
“And what if they don’t let you leave?” His jaw muscles tense.
“They will.” I have to believe they will. Before he rebuts, I add, “I can’t leech off you. Timo spends all of his money, and you support him and Katya and Luka. You can’t afford to provide for me too.”
He doesn’t refute me—because it’s true. He suddenly rises to his feet. “We’re not training today.”
My stomach drops. “Wait—”
“I have to make some calls,” he clarifies. “If you only have today to find another job, then I want to use every hour.”
My lips part in shock. “You’re going to help me?” I’m not sure what I expected his reaction to be, maybe to throw an ultimatum at me. Him or this job. Like my dad did. But this outcome overwhelms me, in a bigger way.
He tilts his head, his eyes softening. And he speaks in hushed Russian. Not long after, he says in English, “I’d help you every day so that you could see a better tomorrow. I will never give you less than that.”
My heart expands with each syllable.
And I wonder if his briefly spoken Russian was what those gray eyes convey now. The sentiments too strong to ignore.
I love you.
I see those words all over him.
I feel them.
But neither of us can say them aloud. Maybe we both refuse to wedge I love you between my purpose for being here, in Vegas.
Love—it has to come second.