16. Nikolai
16
NIKOLAI
H ow did I ever think that I could possibly live without this feeling?
My heart beats like it could explode out of my chest as I make my way backstage with the biggest smile on my face. I ignore the slight pang in my chest that I don’t have my brothers alongside me to soak in this post performance high. This is the new normal, and I need to get used to it.
When I push open the door to my greenroom, applause and cheers erupt from everyone inside. Arun and his team crowd the space, alongside the photographer for the evening and Hendrik. They descend like an excited pack of puppies and clap me on the back, all talking over each other about the performance.
Arun manages to cut his way through and pulls me in for a hug. He smells like his familiar spicy cologne and I’m overwhelmed with gratitude that he’s here with me on this new journey.
“You did it,” he says, pride shining through his words.
“Did you doubt I wouldn’t?” I joke as we break apart.
He rolls his shoulders back with a laugh. “Never. I knew the first time I watched you perform that you were born to do this.”
Many people have told me that over the years, but it hits differently coming from him. He’s been in this industry for longer than I’ve been alive and throughout all of Whisper Me Nothings highs and lows, his belief in me as a front man never wavered.
“Thank you,” I tell him sincerely. “I couldn’t do it without you.”
He shakes his head. “You could, but you’d miss me.”
“Damn straight.”
I follow him over to a table in the corner and accept the water bottle from him. The rest of the room settles into their own conversations as Arun asks, “How do you think it went?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“We’ll get to me in a minute,” he says. “I want to get your thoughts first.”
The water is cool as it slips down my throat. I chug about half of it in one go before I answer. “I think it went well. The crowd responded to the song and performance enthusiastically, and I’m happy with the way it translated to a live version.”
Arun nods alongside my assessment.
“Vocally, it wasn’t my best.” I hate to admit it, but nerves got the best of me in the first verse and some notes were shakier than I’d have liked.
“It’s your first performance in months. I’ll forgive it.”
Arun’s jacket pocket buzzes and he fishes out my phone that I gave him for safekeeping during the performance. He hands it over.
A quick peek reveals a text from Milo, congratulating me on the show and a promise to fly out for the next one. I don’t have anything from either of my parents, but I didn’t really expect to. My mom has been back in Moscow taking care of my grandfather and my dad is currently on vacation in the Bahamas with his new girlfriend.
I shoot Milo a text back before pocketing it and turning my attention to Arun. “Sorry about that.”
“No apologies necessary. Now, what did you think of Kerra? Are you happy with how things went with her?”
I pick at the label on the water bottle as I think over his question. As off-putting as she can be offstage, I can’t deny that she was incredible tonight. She has charisma with a crowd and vocally, she was almost flawless. “I guess so.”
“You guess so?” Arun repeats dully.
“What do you want me to say? She was good. The crowd seemed to be into her.”
He sighs. “Well, I’m happy you can put on a more convincing performance when you’re in front of others. You’re going to need it.”
“Is it too late?—”
“Yes. No backing out now. Especially not after that performance. The two of you might not exactly enjoy each other’s presence offstage, but onstage…” He trails off and pulls up his phone, a video queued up that’s already been posted on social media.
It shows the two of us singing the bridge. Our bodies lean into one another, my much larger frame swallowing hers. The stage lights dance over our profiles and paint us in technicolor. Kerra smiles as she sings and I return it as I lean into her, the song, the show of it all. Damn, even I’m convinced that we have chemistry.
Arun’s right.
We look good together.
But it’s just a show. We’re two pieces from two completely different puzzles. As long as the masses are convinced though, which based on the excited expressions of everyone in the room, I’d say we’re doing our job.
“Are you showing that to me so I’ll say you were right all along?”
He chuckles and tucks his phone in his suit. “Simply thought it would be helpful for you to see from a third party perspective. And to keep it up as the marketing campaign starts now. You two are an item now. You need to uphold your side on that.”
I roll my shoulders back and look around the room as I mutter, “Yeah, yeah.” My eyes dart from person to person and my stomach drops more and more each time I come up short with the person I’m looking for.
The person I’ve been searching for in every crowd since I was a teenager.
I know she’s here. She was in the VIP section during the show and Hendrik confirmed with me when he arrived with her earlier this evening.
Did she leave?
She wouldn’t have.
I go to step out into the hallway to try to find her when I’m intercepted by a few members on Arun’s team. All of them have been around since the early Whisper Me Nothings days and their excitement for my new solo venture is palpable as they praise the new song and chat about how my studio sessions are going.
Normally, making small talk comes easily. It has to when you’re in a line of work like this. But right now, it’s damn near impossible to focus when all I can wonder is where Jane is. Was she upset? It’s not like she didn’t know about Kerra and the fact that we’d be performing together.
Hopefully I appear more engaged with the conversation than I actually am, but all of that flies out the window when the door opens and in walks my favorite distraction and biggest regret wrapped up in the sexiest black dress I’ve ever seen.
My entire focus lasers in on Jane as she enters, chatting with Arun’s marketing manager. She fiddles with the strap on her purse as she warily eyes the crowded room. Her lips are a rich, ruby red and her high cheekbones hold a dark flush. Perfectly rimming my favorite shade of green are dark, thick lashes and her eyes dart around the room as if she’s looking for something.
She’s a fucking work of art, and hatred pumps through my veins that I let her go.
As soon as there’s a lull in conversation, I politely excuse myself and step away from the group. Jane must feel my gaze burning into the side of her head because she meets my eyes for the first time and my stomach drops the second she does.
She shifts on her feet, pursing her lips. The chill from her expression travels across the room and down my spine.
What the hell?
While her palpable unease gives me pause for a moment, I continue to make my way toward her. She shifts and angles her body away from me as if she’s enthralled with her current conversation.
A hand stops me in my tracks.
“Remember what we just talked about?” Arun’s voice is low. “You have a deal to uphold now. And that’s not part of it.” He follows my eyeline to Jane. His grip is tight on my arm but his words feel more like a chain around my heart instead.
I’ll apologize for it later, but right now, I ignore him. Shaking off his hand, I make my way toward her. She recedes back a few steps and that only makes me want to corner her more.
What happened between this morning and now? Why does she look like she’s going to be sick when she looks at me?
“Hey, man, great show.” Raymond, Arun’s head of marketing, holds out his hand, and I shake it absentmindedly, not taking my eyes off Jane.
“Thank you,” I answer. “Did you enjoy the show?” My question is directed at Jane, and she crosses her arms, pushing her breasts higher.
“It was good,” she replies in a monotone that turns my unease to irritation.
“ Good ?” I rear back.
“Fine.”
“ Fine ?”
“Yes. What, did you want a full critique from start to finish?” The attitude she throws the question at me with sets my teeth on edge and turns me on at the same time.
Raymond takes a small step back and slips his hands in his pockets, clearly uncomfortable by the turn this is taking.
“Is there something you’d like to say?” I step closer, closer than two people should be for a causal interaction with all these eyes to witness.
“Not particularly,” she snips, “and I think you should take a step back. Wouldn’t want your girlfriend to get the wrong idea.”
Alright then.
“Can I have some space?” I call out, voice rising above the various conversations. Quickly, everyone grabs their drinks and purses as they clear out. Jane tries to melt into the pack, and I grab her arm, stopping her in her tracks. “Not you,” I rumble.
She stiffens in my grip, but remains put.
Arun is the last to leave, shooting me a reprimanding look that I don’t want to deal with right now. The door clicks shut, engulfing the room in silence.
Tension radiates off Jane and it makes the air stifling until my lungs ache.
“What’s wrong?”
She immediately shakes her head and it dislodges a curl which blocks part of her face.
I try to tuck it behind her ear, but she slaps my hand away. “You don’t get to do that with me after you just pulled it with her onstage.” The venom in her voice masks the hurt I know all too well.
She retreats a step, and I step forward. We do this dance until her back is pressed against one of the walls and she has nowhere left to go. Her chest heaves, but she tries to keep her face blank.
It fails.
I know her too well. Placing my hands flat against the wall, I cage her in.
“Talk to me,” I say, trying to rein in my emotions as the high from performing crashes.
She refuses to shrink even as I lean over her. “I just did.”
“You know it’s a performance,” I remind her. “You know I have to sell it with her. I have everything riding on this, Jane.”
A muscle in her jaw clicks. “I’m not an idiot. Don’t tell me what I already know.”
“An idiot is the last thing I’d ever call you.”
“I’m fully aware that you have to sell your relationship with her. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. Or that I’ll allow you to pull the same moves on her that you do on me.” Her voice shakes at the end of her sentence.
“Don’t cheapen moments we share by comparing them to what I have to do for work now.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not the one cheapening them. Tonight put things into perspective for me,” she says. “I needed a wake-up call and tonight was it.”
“A wake-up call about what?”
“About us.”
“Us?”
Jane nods, and I scoff, anger rising at the walls she’s putting back up again before I even have the chance to jump over them. “And what exactly was this new revelation you had? Because since it has to do with me, I’d like to be informed.”
“You’re being an asshole,” she fires back.
“And you’re being confusing as fuck! You told me to go for it. To do the fake relationship to help my career. And when I found you in the crowd tonight, you seemed to be having a good time. So what the actual fuck happened between then and now?”
Jane pushes off the wall and it takes me by surprise. I concede a few steps so I don’t topple over as she advances on me. “What happened between then and now? I saw what I’ve seen for the past nine years! You flirting and touching and looking at women the way I only ever wanted you to do with me. Happy now?”
“It’s part of the performance!”
“No, it’s reality!”
“Bullshit.”
Jane holds her arms out in exasperation. “No, you’re right. You know what the reality is?” She pauses, taking in a heavy breath before she says, “The reality is that I never meant as much to you as you did to me.”
She might as well have slapped me. It would’ve been less shocking than the words that just came out of her mouth. “What kind of fucked up reality do you live in?” I yell.
“The kind where I told you I loved you and you told me to take it back!”
There it is. What it always comes back to.
Her pain radiates straight into my heart as she cuts herself open with the ugly truth and admission. “I fucked up…” I shake my head. “I know that and I’m sorry. If I could go back in time, I’d do things differently.”
“Like what?”
“Like tell you that I felt the same way that you did.”
Jane freezes. Like ice replaced the blood in her body. And when she finally speaks, the words are low and gritty. “Don’t say that. Not after all this time.”
“It’s the truth.” I plead.
“No.” The word is hollow as it echoes around the greenroom. “You don’t get to say that to me now, nine years later. Not when I’ve been haunted by that night ever since.”
“You’ve fucking haunted me , Jane. For years.” I run my hands through my hair, pulling at the ends frantically. “Every single time I tried to move on and I thought I was finally in love with someone, it wouldn’t last because sooner or later, no matter what they looked like, black hair and green eyes were all I could see. All I could dream about was you. All of them served as a distraction and it worked until it didn’t and you infiltrated my mind again and again.”
Jane’s chin wobbles but she steels her expression. “I?—”
I cut her off, the need to get this confession crawling its way up my throat out before I can stop it. “And when I saw my life flash before my eyes, not fighting for you was my biggest regret. I let you slip through my fingers.”
She presses her hands against her chest as if it can stop the pain both of us have lived in since that night.
“I should’ve never let you walk away that night,” I say, tears clogging my throat. “I should’ve never pushed you away that night.”